(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Music open thread: Music in F-sharp major [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-07-01 Continuing my survey of music along the circle of fifths. I was hoping to highlight some great, undeservedly obscure music by women composers, black composers, etc. But with F-sharp major, there’s very little to pick from by anyone. Aside from Chopin’s Barcarolle in F-sharp major, what is there? x YouTube Video Well, Chopin did write a few other piano pieces in F-sharp major. Franz Liszt also used the key from time to time. Looking through the IMSLP page for F-sharp major, I came across In Dahomey by Percy Grainger. I’m not sure what the context is for this piece. Did Grainger travel to Africa for a vacation? I had some hesitation about including this piece. But it’s in the specified key and there’s a video of the United States Navy Band playing a band arrangement of it. x YouTube Video Now, if you look in the piano solo score, you might have some even more intense mixed feelings about this piece, I know I did. As I looked more into it, I started to doubt that Grainger had ever gone to Africa, but I don’t know that for a fact. So, composer Will Marion Cook collaborated with librettist Jesse A. Shipp and poet Paul Laurence Dunbar to create In Dahomey, the first Broadway show written by blacks about black protagonists. The show toured in England and Grainger was apparently a fan. And so Grainger was inspired to take a melody from the show and base a new composition on it. In the Ronald Stevenson edition, the source musical is described with a racial slur that I feel very uncomfortable typing even though it’s not the one you might have guessed “Using tune from [Slur] Comic Opera...” Though I’m not sure whether to blame Grainger or Stevenson for that. Grainger’s piece is mostly in F-sharp major though it does have a section in F (natural) major. The F-sharp major is in part justified by several slides on the black keys of the piano. The band arrangement is presumably in G-flat major. Even if you’re arranging music for the Navy Band, you don’t want to write the E-flat instruments in D-sharp major (two double sharps and five sharps). With G-flat major, you’d have your B-flat instruments playing in A-flat major and your E-flat instruments playing in E-flat major, two keys that are far more reasonable than G-sharp major (one double sharp and six sharps) and D-sharp major. My research also turned up the composer Emmeline Darolle, but I have not been able to hear any recording of her piece in F-sharp major. There are two big symphonies that are said to be in F-sharp major, though neither of them really feels like it’s in a major key. Erich Korngold’s Symphony, Opus 40, is said to be in F-sharp major by IMSLP and, for what it’s worth, Wikipedia. However, the Wikipedia article, for what it’s worth, as it stood when I wrote this, has it as “in F-sharp major” in the title and the URL, but simply as “in F-sharp” in the lead line. The symphony is frequently referred to without specifying “major,” such as the title of the following YouTube video. As I’ve mentioned before, Korngold’s Sinfonietta in B major is actually longer than this Symphony in F-sharp. x YouTube Video Bruckner’s Seventh was inspired by the impending death of Wagner. Korngold’s was inspired by the death of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (D, 1933 — 1945). But whereas the shadow of death doesn’t appear in the Bruckner until the C-sharp minor Adagio, in the Korngold it is from the very beginning that the processing of grief is apparent. Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 is also said to be in F-sharp major. Written in the final years of his life, the score is filled with desperate farewell messages. The first page of the score does show an F-sharp major key signature, but the unaccompanied violas’ line at the beginning has a bunch of naturals and double sharps. Unlike what happened with Bruckner’s Ninth, no one has tried to deceive us as to how much Mahler completed of his final symphony. As with Bruckner’s Ninth, however, there are many details of varying importance in Mahler’s Tenth that need to be decided by a modern editor for a proper performing edition. Here’s Rudolf Barshai conducting a youth orchestra in his own performing edition of Mahler’s Tenth. The performance lasts an hour and fourteen minutes, which is maybe a little on the short side for a Mahler Tenth completion. x YouTube Video On a much lighter note, in the open thread on F-sharp minor, I mentioned that Joseph Haydn’s Farewell Symphony has a minuet in F-sharp major, a detail that is overshadowed by the staging of the famous finale. The finale of the Farewell Symphony starts out in F-sharp minor, but after the double bassist leaves (presumably there’s only one of him), the key signature changes to F-sharp major. At the very end, with only two violinists left on stage, the C♯7 chord is suggested rather than actually voiced, and the final tonic chord is in first inversion, though maybe in a performance with continuo the player on keyboard would fill in a low F-sharp. The open thread question: What’s your favorite music in F-sharp major? 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