Tuesday, September 21, 2021The key of C major is a case of “less is more”: the key signature has no sharps or flats (a characteristic it shares with its relative minor, A minor), and scales are played only on the white keys of a keyboard. The C major scale is divided evenly by F-sharp, the register shift in both the soprano and tenor voices; which may be the reason that Mozart and Haydn composed most of their masses in that key.
C major can be considered the “home key”, the reference to which all other keys derive their distinctive coloration.
Here is the Prelude and Fugue in C major from Book II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.
Prelude and Fugue: No. 1 in C Major, BWV 846
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John Scialdone published this page in Daily Beethoven 2021-09-21 08:01:52 -0400