A-flat minor

A♭ minor
Relative key	C♭ major; enharmonic: B major
Parallel key	A♭ major
Dominant key	E♭ minor; enharmonic: D♯ minor
Subdominant	D♭ minor; enharmonic: C♯ minor
Enharmonic	G♯ minor
Component pitches
	A♭, B♭, C♭, D♭, E♭, F♭, G♭

A♭ minor is a minor scale based on A♭, consisting of the pitches A♭, B♭, C♭, D♭, E♭, F♭, and G♭. Its key signature has seven flats. Its relative major is C♭ major (or enharmonically B major), its parallel major is A♭ major, and its direct enharmonic equivalent is G♯ minor.

The A♭ natural minor scale is:

${ \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \relative c'' { \clef treble \key aes \minor \time 7/4 aes4^\markup { Natural minor scale } bes ces des es fes ges aes ges fes es des ces bes aes2 } }$

Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with accidentals as necessary. The A♭ harmonic minor and melodic minor scales are:

${ \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \relative c'' { \clef treble \key aes \minor \time 7/4 aes4^\markup { Harmonic minor scale } bes ces des es fes g aes g fes es des ces bes aes2 } }$

${ \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \relative c'' { \clef treble \key aes \minor \time 7/4 aes4^\markup { Melodic minor scale (ascending and descending) } bes ces des es f g aes ges! fes! es des ces bes aes2 } }$

Music in A♭ minor

Although A♭ minor occurs in modulation in works in other keys, it is only rarely used as the principal key of a piece of music. Some well-known uses of the key in classical and romantic piano music include:

The Funeral March in Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 12, Op. 26.
An early section of the last movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 31, Op. 110 (although the key signature of this section uses only 6 flats, not 7).
The Adagio of Friedrich Kalkbrenner's Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 127, although it is written with a four-flat key signature and uses accidentals to indicate the minor mode.
The first piece "Aime-moi" ("Love me") from Charles-Valentin Alkan's Trois morceaux dans le genre pathétique
Johannes Brahms's Fugue for organ (c. 1857).
Max Bruch's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Op. 88a (although at least one two-piano transcription of this uses a 6-flat signature, similarly to the Op. 110 Beethoven example).
The Evocación from Book I of Isaac Albéniz's Iberia.
Leoš Janáček uses it for his Violin Sonata and the organ solo of his Glagolitic Mass.
The opening of Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird.
Moritz Moszkowski used it for his piano etude, Op. 72 No. 13.
Franz Liszt's original version of "La campanella" from Grandes études de Paganini, which was subsequently rewritten in G♯ minor.
In Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony, there is a particularly aggressive restatement of the introduction of the third movement in A-flat minor.^[1]

It is also used in Frederick Loewe's score to the 1956 musical play My Fair Lady; the Second Servants' Chorus is set in A♭ minor (the preceding and following choruses being a semitone lower and higher respectively).

More often, pieces in a minor mode that have A♭'s pitch as tonic are notated in the enharmonic key, G♯ minor, because of G♯'s appreciably simpler key signature and it has just five sharps as opposed to the seven flats of A♭ minor. As a result, only works expressly notated as such may reasonably be considered to be in A♭ minor.

In some scores, the A♭ minor key signature in the bass clef is written with the flat for the F on the second line from the top.^{[nb 1]}

Notes

↑ An example of this is the bass clef staff of the harp parts in the Jupiter movement of Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets.^[2]

References

↑ Mahler, Gustav. Symphony No. 9 in Full Score, Dover, ISBN 0-486-27492-6 (1993), pp. 116-119.
↑ Holst, Gustav. The Planets in Full Score, Dover, ISBN 0-486-29277-0 (1996), p. 109.

External links

Overview of Compositions with 7 Accidentals

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[3] An example of this is the bass clef staff of the harp parts in the Jupiter movement of Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets.^[2]

[1] Mahler, Gustav. Symphony No. 9 in Full Score, Dover, ISBN 0-486-27492-6 (1993), pp. 116-119.

[2] Holst, Gustav. The Planets in Full Score, Dover, ISBN 0-486-29277-0 (1996), p. 109.

Component pitches

Relative key	C♭ major enharmonic: B major
Parallel key	A♭ major
Dominant key	E♭ minor enharmonic: D♯ minor
Subdominant	D♭ minor enharmonic: C♯ minor
Enharmonic	G♯ minor
A♭, B♭, C♭, D♭, E♭, F♭, G♭