Chopin – Polonaise in G sharp minor, B 6 – Music | History

Chopin – Polonaise in G sharp minor, B 6 – Music | History

Despite the key rarely being used in orchestral music other than to modulate, it is not entirely uncommon in keyboard music, as in Piano Sonata No. 2 by Alexander Scriabin, who actually seemed to prefer writing in it. It is also found in the second movement in Shostakovitch’s 8th String quartet. If G-sharp minor is used, composers generally write B♭ wind instruments in the enharmonic B-flat minor, rather than A-sharp minor to facilitate reading the music (or A instruments used instead, giving a transposed key of B minor). Where available, instruments in D♭ can be used instead, giving a transposed key of the enharmonic G minor, rather than F minor, while the E horns would have parts written in the key of E minor.
Few symphonies are written in G-sharp minor; among them are Nikolai Myaskovsky’s 17th Symphony, Elliot Goldenthal’s Symphony in G-sharp minor (2014) and an abandoned work of juvenilia by Marc Blitzstein.
Frédéric Chopin composed a Polonaise in G-sharp minor, opus posthumous in 1822. His Étude No. 6 is in G-sharp minor as well.

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