Ab Major - Research on Harmony

Eight notes played Lent, mp, legato, in triple time — the fullest statement in the series, a descending line spanning from Ab1 to C7, nearly six octaves of chord. The phrase opens in the sub-bass and cascades downward through the registers, each pitch a step in a long, unhurried fall. D5 and B3 bring orange and yellow-green accents into the chord, warm visitors threading through the cool frame.

Blue toward black dominates the bottom where Ab1 sits in near-darkness. The middle register fills with red and red-violet from the thirds, while blue-violet carries the fifth. At the top, C7 dissolves toward pale, near-white red. The accents — orange at D5, yellow-green at B3 — glow like embers scattered across a field of cool twilight.

The opening study, the series at its most expansive. Everything that follows will be a reduction, a reshaping — but here, Ab Major states its full palette before the variations begin.