Subdominant C♯ minor | Enharmonic A♭ minor | |
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Relative key B major
enharmonic: C♭ major Parallel key G♯ major
enharmonic: A♭ major Dominant key D♯ minor
enharmonic: E♭ minor | ||
G-sharp minor is a minor scale based on G♯, consisting of the pitches G♯, A♯, B, C♯, D♯, E, and F♯. For the harmonic minor, the F♯ is raised to F (enharmonic G♮). Its key signature has five sharps.
Its relative major is B major. Its parallel major, G♯ major, is usually replaced by its enharmonic equivalent of A♭ major, since G♯ major features an F in the key signature and A♭ major only has four flats, making it rare for G♯ major to be used. A♭ minor, with seven flats, has a similar problem, thus G♯ minor is often used as the parallel minor for A♭ major. The same enharmonic situation occurs with the keys of D♭ major and C♯ minor, with C♯ major having seven sharps and D♭ minor having eight flats, including the B.
Despite the key rarely being used in orchestral music other than to modulate, it is not entirely uncommon in keyboard music, as in Piano Sonata No. 2 by Alexander Scriabin. It can also found in the second movement in Shostakovitch's 8th String quartet. If G-sharp minor is used, composers generally write B-flat wind instruments in the enharmonic B-flat minor, rather than A-sharp minor to facilitate reading the music.
In a few scores, the sharp A in the bass clef is written on the top line.
Well-known compositions in this key
Few symphonies are written in G ♯ minor; among them are Nikolai Myaskovsky's 17th Symphony, Christopher Schlegel's 5th Symphony and an abandoned work of juvenilia by Marc Blitzstein.
Johann Sebastian Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier No. 18: Prelude and Fugue in G-sharp minor, Books 1 (1722) and 2 (1744), are among the works in this key.
Chopin composed a Polonaise in G-Sharp Minor, opus posthumous in 1822. His Étude No. 6 is in G-sharp minor as well.
Lizst's La campanella from his Grandes études de Paganini is in G-Sharp minor.