F-flat major

Infobox Scale


scale_name=Fmusic|flat major
relative=D^b minor
parallel=F^b minor
enharmonic:
E minor
enharmonic=E major
first_pitch=Fmusic|flat
second_pitch=Gmusic|flat
third_pitch=Amusic|flat
fourth_pitch=Bmusic|doubleflat
fifth_pitch=Cmusic|flat
sixth_pitch=Dmusic|flat
seventh_pitch=Emusic|flatThe musical note F-flat is enharmonically equivalent to E natural. It is, however, lower in pitch, F-flat being a perfect fifth below C-flat, whereas E natural being a major third above C. [cite book|title=A new, easy, and correct system of vocal music|author=Robert Platt|chapter=Modulation|pages=75|date=1847|location=London|publisher=Aylott and Jones]

F-flat major is a major scale based on F-flat, consisting of the pitches F-flat, G-flat, A-flat, B-double flat, C-flat, D-flat, E-flat and F-flat. Its key signature has eight flats. [cite book|title=The Road to Music|author=Nicolas Slonimsky|pages=16|location=New York|date=1960|publisher=Dodd, Mead, & Co.]

Its relative minor is D-flat minor, and its parallel minor is F-flat minor, usually replaced by E minor.

Part of Richard Strauss' "Metamorphosen" uses F flat major, which one commentator has called "a bitter enharmonic parody" of the earlier manifestations of E major in the piece. [cite book|title=Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and His Work|author=Bryan Randolph Gilliam|pages=237|date=1998|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=0822321149]

For clarity and simplicitly, F-flat major is sometimes notated as its enharmonic equivalent of E major.

A well-known example can be found in Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 31, op. 110. In the first movement's exposition, the transitional passage between the first and second subjects consists of arpeggiated figuration beginning in A-flat major and modulating to the dominant key of E-flat major. In the recapitulation, the key for this passage is changed to bring the second subject back in A-flat major: the transitional passage appears in a key that would theoretically be F-flat major, but which is notated in E major, presumably because Beethoven judged this easier to read - this key being a major third below the key of the earlier appearance of this passage.

Another example of F-flat major being notated as E major can be found in the "Adagio" of Haydn's Trio No. 27 in A-flat major. The Finale of Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 employs enharmonic E for F-flat, but its Coda employs F-flat directly, with a phrygian cadence through F-flat onto the tonic. [cite web|author=Donald Betts|date=2005|url=http://innig.net./music/betts-innervoice/|work=The Inner Voice|title=Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Opus 110] [cite book|title=Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata|author=James Arnold Hepokoski and Warren Darcy|pages=326|date=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0195146409] [cite book|title=Bruckner's Symphonies: Analysis, Reception and Cultural Politics|author=Julian Horton|pages=127|date=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0521823544]

References

cales and keys