Mendelssohn's venetian boat song

[quaver]

Venetian boat song Op.30 No.6 by Mendelssohn.  I am trying to understand the chord progressions.  It is in the key of f# minor.  Measure 5 looks like it could be that f# is the tonic pedal.  The rest of the notes - in the first 3 beats (meas.5)is the dominant 7th (missing the mediant note).  The last beat (A and C#) are passing notes.  That leaves the 4th beat and that is where I am beat (pardon the pun).  Can anyone enlighten me.  Thanks.;

[slobone]

You're right about the tonic pedal, but the chord is a 9th, not a 7th. A major ninth. Normally I would say the 9 is flat, but since you're in a minor key, I think the D natural is not considered an altered note. I don't know if they use the same terminology in your class.

[quaver]

In my book of chords a C#maj9 has C# E# G# B# D#.  In measure 5 the D and B are natural.  I also had considered a 9th chord - perhaps C#m9 with a flatted 9th (if there is such a chord)!

[slobone]

Maybe somebody who works with this stuff more than I do can correct the terminology. It clearly plays the role of a dominant 7th, which are always major, so it's not a C# minor chord. I'm sticking to saying that the 9th is unaltered because D is natural in an F# minor scale.

But really, it's almost overkill to overanalyze these passing chords in a context like this.  The tonic pedal tells you we're really not straying too far from the tonic anyway.

[andreslr6]

It would be a minor 9th, you say flat or sharp when they are altered, 9th's can be minor or major like 2nds. In a minor tonality the 9th of the V will naturally be minor so, you would just write it V9 and it will automatically be understood as minor 9th because of the tonality, and the 7th would be implicit.
 
If it were a major 9th in a minor tonality you would write it V9#, just as if in a major tonality a minor 9th would be V9b because they would be altered.