A Major - Research on Harmony - Variation 5

The series' one descending étude. Variation 5 opens at C#7 (silver) — the extreme high end — and falls in waltz time through seven notes to A1 (near-black) in the deep bass. Where the ascending études leave the phrase hanging at the top, the descending shape delivers it to the bass as its resolution.

C#7 is near-white: the silver that appears at the top of the chromesthetic register, where color thins almost to absence. The étude begins in this pale extreme and moves steadily downward through yellow-oranges and blue-greens, arriving at the near-black root. Highlights dominate at 64% — the silver upper register still carries the painting's weight even though the phrase ends in the dark.

Lent, mp, legato, triple time. A slow waltz descending. Seven notes, all chord tones, no tensions. Of the eleven studies in A Major, only this one descends — the single moment where the phrase goes down and rests in the bass rather than hanging at the top.