Ab Minor - Research on Harmony - Variations 14

No accents, no visitors — every note belongs to the chord. Six notes ascending in a waltz: Ab2, Eb4, Eb5, Ab5, B5, B6. Played Animé, mf, legato, in three — the line climbing from the dark blue of the root through the blue-violet of the fifths, past the root again at Ab5, and into the yellow-green of the minor third at the crest. Mf gives the ascent a clear, open presence — louder than the soft restraint of the middle variations.

Pure Ab minor on the canvas. Only the blues and blue-violets and yellow-greens of the chord itself, uninterrupted by warm color. The phrase rises from darkness to light without a single outside tone.

The purest étude in the late series — the cool triad climbing toward light, stated with conviction, the phrase left suspended at the minor third.