Friday, August 27, 2021

Bach composed a fascinating prelude and fugue in A minor in Book II of his Well-Tempered Clavier.

 Thursday, August 27, 2021

Inadvertently omitted in our march up the well-tempered chromatic scale was the key of G-sharp minor (my fingers must have stumbled on a black key). The key signature for G-sharp minor has five sharps, making it slightly more convenient to employ than its enharmonic equivalent key, A-flat minor, with seven flats.

 Wednesday, May 22, 2024

For sheer joy and exuberance, nothing can compare with Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, in A major. It was premiered in December 1813 at a charity concert for the benefit of soldiers wounded at the Battle of Hanau, and was an instant success.

 Monday, August 23, 2021

We begin our exploration of the key of A major with this lyrical performance of Bach's Prelude and Fugue in A major from Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier.

 Saturday, August 21, 2021

Beethoven composed his twelfth piano sonata, the Opus 26 in A-flat major in 1800-1801, around the same time as he completed his First Symphony. It’s a most unusual sonata in that none of its four movements are written in the sonata form.

 Friday, August 20, 2021

The next step in our journey through the 24 keys of the well-tempered system is A-flat major. Without getting too complicated, A-flat major is never known as its enharmonic equivalent G-sharp major, because G-sharp major would have to have eight sharps in its key signature, including an F-double-sharp. This is theoretically possible, but there’s no reason to do it. A-flat major, on the other hand, has just four flats, making it perfectly convenient to use.

 Thursday, August 19, 2021

The key of G minor gives us the opportunity to hear a little-known work by Beethoven, the Fantasy in G minor, Opus 77.

 Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Staying in the key of G minor for today, we have Mozart’s wonderful symphony in G minor – the 40th of his 41 symphonies, only two of which were composed in minor keys (the other was the 25th, also in G minor).