From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A major
(or the
key of A
) is a
major scale
with a
base note
of A. Its
key signature
has three sharps.
Its
relative minor
is
F-sharp minor
. The key of A-major is the only key where a
Neapolitan sixth
chord on
needs both a flat and a natural accidental.
There are not as many symphonies in A major as in
D major
or
G major
, but more than other sharp keys.
Beethoven
's
Symphony No. 7
,
Bruckner
's
Symphony No. 6
and
Mendelssohn
's
Symphony No. 4
are almost all the symphonies in this key in the
Romantic era
.
Mozart
's
Clarinet Concerto
and
Clarinet Quintet
are both in A major. Mozart used clarinets in A major often.
[1]
In chamber music, A major is used a lot.
Johannes Brahms
,
Cesar Franck
, and
Gabriel Faure
wrote violin sonatas in A major. Peter Cropper said that A major "is the fullest sounding key for the violin.", when he was talking about Beethoven's
Kreutzer Sonata
.
[2]
According to
Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart
, A major is a key that is good for "declarations of innocent love, ... hope of seeing one's beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God."
[3]
When music for orchestra is in A major, the
timpani
are normally set to A and E a
fifth
apart. In most other keys, they are set a
fourth
apart.
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The table shows the number of sharps or flats in each scale. Minor scales are written in lower case.
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to
A major
.
- ↑
Mark Anson-Cartwright, "Chromatic Features of E♭-Major Works of the Classical Period"
Music Theory Spectrum
22
2 (2000): 178
- ↑
Peter Cropper "Beethoven's Violin Sonata in A major, Op.47 'Kreutzer': First Movement"
The Strad
March 2009, p. 64
- ↑
Rita Steblin:
A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
(Rochester, University of Rochester Press: 1996) p. 123
- Colin Lawson,
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
, A Cambridge Music Handbook, Cambridge University Press, 1996.