C Major9 - Research on Harmony - Variation 13

Eight notes — the densest arch alongside the earlier nine-note variation. C1, C2, C3, C4, D4, G4, D5, E7. Four octaves of root stack in the bass, the red of C repeated from near-black to its characteristic hue at C4. Then D4 and G4 sit in the same octave — ninth and fifth, a step and a half apart — before D5 and E7 complete the ascent. Played Lent, mp, legato, in four.

The root dominates the lower half of the canvas — four registers of red, each lighter than the last, a slow gradient from black to dark red. The upper half opens: orange at D4, red-orange at G4, brighter orange at D5, then a vast leap to silver at E7. The painting is bass-heavy, the root insisting in four octaves before the other chord tones appear.

The most root-anchored variation — four C notes piling darkness at the bottom, the ninth and fifth emerging late, the third arriving only at the keyboard's extreme. The arch built on a foundation of red.