F-sharp major
 | |
| Relative key | D♯ minor enharmonic: E♭ minor |
|---|---|
| Parallel key | F♯ minor |
| Enharmonic | G♭ major |
| Component pitches | |
| F♯, G♯, A♯, B, C♯, D♯, E♯, F♯ | |
F♯ major or F-sharp major is a major scale based on F♯, consisting of the pitches F♯, G♯, A♯, B, C♯, D♯, and E♯. Its key signature has six sharps.
Its relative minor is D♯ minor, and its parallel minor is F♯ minor. Its enharmonic equivalent is G♭ major.
F-sharp major is the key of Beethoven's Piano Sonata, Op. 78, of Chopin's Barcarolle, of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, of Mahler's unfinished Tenth Symphony, Erich Korngold's Symphony Op. 40, and Scriabin's Fourth Sonata. The key was the favourite tonality of Olivier Messiaen, who used it repeatedly throughout his work to express his most exciting or transcendent moods, most notably in the Turangalîla Symphony.
In a few scores, the F-sharp major key signature in the bass clef is written with the sharp for the A on the top line.
The key is rarely used in orchestral music, other than when to modulate. It is more common in keyboard music, such as the sonatas of Scriabin and Grieg's Lyric Piece, Til Våren. For orchestration of piano music, some theorists recommend transposing the music to F major or G major. If F-sharp major must absolutely be used, one should take care that B-flat wind instruments be notated in A-flat major, rather than G-sharp major.
The Presentation of the Rose scene in Act Two of Richard Strauss's opera Der Rosenkavalier is written in F-sharp major.
References
Retrieved from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-sharp_major
