Prelude in F-sharp major

I thought I'd share this short prelude I started last year and finished soon after (which I originally intended to use for Valentines' Day this year, but alas...). I haven't been writing much new stuff and am currently working on fixing up a few of my older compositions so this was one of the few things I did manage to conjure up in the past few months. I hope it's listenable? (as for playability, arpeggiating large chords is a must, haha)

It’s a composition that sounds very harmonious and sweet. I haven’t taken the time to analyze it, but that middle section caught my attention (the key signature change).

Nice stuff. F Sharp?! Why? So many sharps! Anyways, taking a guess, the next thing you compose is in F Flat Major.

I very enjoyed this dreamy prelude with its nocturne-like charm.

What I was especially excited for is the tonality, e.g the use of both F-sharp major and G-flat major. (I mention this because my last recently posted composition is in G-flat major/F-sharp major, too, while not a prelude but a fugue …). I guess you’ve chosen that key change to emphasize the different nuances of mood in the piece, the sharps for the brighter passages and the flats for the melancholic ones.

The texture is well balanced and I like that you decided to present the score with revealing the five-part movement.

As you yourself noted, there are some large chords which are playable with arpeggiating only. When I’m looking at the score at the first glance, there are – beside the large chords – some intervals that seem to be uncomfortable to be played. However, many of them are playable when taking a note in the other hand. I would appreciate, if such situations would be written out or marked in the score (even if it would look somewhat cluttered) for an easier sight-reading experience.

Listenable? Very much so - I'd say a beautiful work indeed.

22 hours ago, Wieland Handke said:

sharps for the brighter passages and the flats for the melancholic ones.

I would argue sharps are more brilliant, flats are more ambient, and c major... is just nursery rhymes basically.

Hallo @TristanTheTristan ,

Haha, F-flat major, a key with a double flat in its key signature …

But thanks for the link; interestingly, it included some examples where composers actually used F-flat major, at least in certain passages or movements of their works.

So you brought me to an idea: Since I have not yet composed my E-major fugue, there might be a spot where I could use F-flat major in a passage with a mood that calls for flats rather than sharps (I associate the mood of flats with „darker“ and „somber“, but also „warmer“ and „mellow“.)

But to take it a step further, I should not use F-flat major, but F-flat lydian, so that I could make a key signature change in the score to seven flats in order to stay within the common range of usable accidentals. And the mood of F-flat lydian must be completely confusing: As „dark“ as possible due to the seven flats and „luminous“ at the same time, from the Lydian mode.

21 hours ago, Wieland Handke said:

Hallo @TristanTheTristan ,

Haha, F-flat major, a key with a double flat in its key signature …

But thanks for the link; interestingly, it included some examples where composers actually used F-flat major, at least in certain passages or movements of their works.

So you brought me to an idea: Since I have not yet composed my E-major fugue, there might be a spot where I could use F-flat major in a passage with a mood that calls for flats rather than sharps (I associate the mood of flats with „darker“ and „somber“, but also „warmer“ and „mellow“.)

But to take it a step further, I should not use F-flat major, but F-flat lydian, so that I could make a key signature change in the score to seven flats in order to stay within the common range of usable accidentals. And the mood of F-flat lydian must be completely confusing: As „dark“ as possible due to the seven flats and „luminous“ at the same time, from the Lydian mode.

It will be difficult read, like REALLY difficult.

Thanks everyone for your comments, I sincerely appreciate every one of them! As is ever the concern of a composer I'm very happy to know that the right mood/atmosphere came across to other people :)

There seems to have been some discussion about the key and key signatures:

On 3/19/2026 at 5:43 AM, Luis Hernández said:

It’s a composition that sounds very harmonious and sweet. I haven’t taken the time to analyze it, but that middle section caught my attention (the key signature change).

On 3/19/2026 at 6:09 AM, TristanTheTristan said:

F Sharp?! Why? So many sharps! Anyways, taking a guess, the next thing you compose is in F Flat Major.

On 3/19/2026 at 8:50 AM, Wieland Handke said:

What I was especially excited for is the tonality, e.g the use of both F-sharp major and G-flat major. (I mention this because my last recently posted composition is in G-flat major/F-sharp major, too, while not a prelude but a fugue …). I guess you’ve chosen that key change to emphasize the different nuances of mood in the piece, the sharps for the brighter passages and the flats for the melancholic ones.

I was never really a fan of music with all sorts of accidentals and black keys until I came across Scriabin, whose delight for the likes of F♯ major/D♯ minor, B major/G♯ minor, G♭ major/E♭ minor, and D♭ major/B♭ minor seems to have slightly rubbed off on me. Idk though, I felt like F♯ major gave off sweet lyrical romance (e.g. Poème op. 32/1 or Étude op. 42/4) vibes so I went with writing in that for this work.

The key signature switch to G♭ major/E♭ minor was actually only a logistical sight-reading one, if I remember correctly. In the middle section there's some vacillation between a major key and its relative minor, which would have been fine for bars 9-12. However, I move a fourth lower in the following four bars, i.e. tonicising the dominant, which means that if I kept the original key signature I'd get C♯ major and its relative minor A♯ minor. Eek. Sharp overload. I am not quite sadistic enough to put that onto the performer, let alone F♭ major (though that has now given me an idea...). I figured that writing out the middle section in flats meant that I could resort to using natural signs rather than extra sharps in bars 13-16, but yo, @Luis Hernández and @Wieland Handke, you may have a point with it also engendering a somewhat darker mood, as I had intended.

On 3/19/2026 at 8:50 AM, Wieland Handke said:

When I’m looking at the score at the first glance, there are – beside the large chords – some intervals that seem to be uncomfortable to be played. However, many of them are playable when taking a note in the other hand. I would appreciate, if such situations would be written out or marked in the score (even if it would look somewhat cluttered) for an easier sight-reading experience.

This is an excellent point, now that I'm poring through the score again. I think there are some spots (e.g. b. 12) where I quite like the arpeggiated quality, but I have also decided to add a few markings for spots where I think it is justifiable to have the other hand take a note or two. Was this what you were thinking of?

Version with redistributions.pdf

12 hours ago, 林家興 said:

This is an excellent point, now that I'm poring through the score again. I think there are some spots (e.g. b. 12) where I quite like the arpeggiated quality, but I have also decided to add a few markings for spots where I think it is justifiable to have the other hand take a note or two. Was this what you were thinking of?

Yes, but not yet as I intended. To clarify my ideas, I have attached a version of your latest score with some annotations.

I see that you have marked the notes where the other hand takes over. But the markings (m.g. and m.d.) aren’t very helpful for sight-readers, since the note is still written in the “wrong” staff.

Sight-reading is about reading chords and intervals—not individual notes. Whenever a note of a chord or interval is written in the “wrong” staff, the recognition pattern that a sight-reader normally uses to identify a chord or interval is inherently lost, forcing the player to identify a single note and add it to the chord/interval being played, which slows down the process. Consequently, such situations require practice and/or memorization, which contradicts the approach of sight-reading and playing the piece “without practice.”

Therefore, I very appreciate scores where the chords/intervals are notated as a complete pattern in that staff where it is to be played by the respective hand.

I must admit, that such a score looks sometimes a bit „cluttered“ because of the „kneed beams“ and sometimes cross-staff note stems (producing sometimes problems for the collision resolving with dynamics, slurs etc), but if the player finally makes the respective annotations by hand in its score, the readability is reduced, too.

Please do not take my comments as personal criticism of your score; rather, they are intended as general advice or as basis for discussion, since I often come across scores here in the forum—even from very experienced composers—that, while well-suited for analyzing voice leading, leave me with the uncomfortable feeling: “Has the composer ever played this piece himself, and did he pay sufficient attention to its playability?”

AnnotatedScore.pdf