Videos of David Rakowski's music. And SoundCloud thingies, too. See Alphabetical List of Posts for genres.
"rampant imagination, ideas and riffs aggressively growing, mutating, overrunning a stretch of time like invasive species." — Boston Globe "it outstayed its welcome like pundits’ ceaseless chatter" — NY Times "If it was sultry, it was an academic sultry" — Boston Globe "Mr. Rakowski is to be treasured for livening up the piano repertoire" — New York Concert Review
Étude-Fantasies (2009), commissioned by the Music Teachers Association of California. The commission specified an intermediate level piece for young performers aged 11-13, and apparently it fits the bill. It's published by CF Peters, Edition 68307. The movies below were taken by parents in the audience. Three duos of various ages premiered them at the MTAC Conference in July, 2010, and I coached all three. Two of them were caught on video and posted on YouTube, thus. Jeremy and Zachary Siu: Sam Yang and Andrea Tam: Me coaching Sam and Andrea doing a stand-up routine after their performance:
Incidentally. Do I really sound like that when I talk?
I wrote incidental music for the Brandeis Theater Company's productions of The Bacchae in 2006 (string quartet and timpani) and Hecuba (string quartet and piano) in 2009. The sound designers then got to use the recorded excerpts however they wanted. Any music in the excerpts captured below was written for Hecuba. Some of the ambient sounds were also improvised in the recording sessions and cobbled together by the sound designer, J Jumbelic. The performers were the Lydian Quartet with Yu-Hui Chang on piano.
This is the overture to Hecuba. Thunderstorm, ships, foreboding and all that.
Hecuba Disaster Chorus. A character sings above this, but there is no recording of the singing.
Hecuba Busy cue 1
Hecuba Busy cue 2a
Hecuba Busy cue 2b
The Bacchae. Cue #1. Various representational chords.
The Bacchae, Cue #34.
The Bacchae. Cue #35, a lament underscoring a speech of regret, segueing into representational chords.
II. is based around a chromatic wedge, after Twelve-Step Program which Marilyn recorded.
III. started as a monoritmicon stealing, in a sense, from Absofunkinlutely.
IV. is based on scales, after Sliding Scales.
Before the premiere, I went to New York to work with Marilyn Nonken, for whom the piece was written, and she graciously agreed to be filmed playing these short excerpts, minus the orchestra, who were too expensive to bring to New York just be offscreen in a Flip Video.
This one is near the end of the first movement. This is the first big piano stuff in the finale. This is the cadenza, near the end of the finale. This is the brief excerpt before the cadenza in which Marilyn has to play toy piano, and then both piano and toy piano.
Sonnet 22 (1976). Yes, I wrote it when I was 18 and the text is Elizabeth Barrett Browning. This is not a movie, but it does represent the all the choral music I've ever written. I've added mucho reverb because that seems to be the thing that kids do nowadays; and you can tell the 18-year-old author really liked Hindemith's Six Chansons. It's the Brandeis U Chamber Singers conducted by Jim Olesen, in the spring of 2008.
When the Bow Breaks (2000) for solo violin, in four movements: I. Introduction II. Passacaglia III. Chorale Around the Open Strings IV. I Dreamed I Was Chasing My Own Tail The performance was by Drew Williams at Ravinia on a concert of the Fresh Inc. Festival in June, 2012. He kills it. My piece steals from the Stravinsky Violin Concerto by starting each movement with the same tag — the passacaglia movement's theme is the lower notes of that tag. Published by CF Peters, Edition 67871.
And here is Drew doing a preview performance at Carthage College just a little before (I: 0:25; II: 2:52; III: 5:10; IV: 8:09).
Drew is memorizing the piece now (Nov 2012), and blogging about it. Luccicare for 'cello solo. Written for Rhonda Rider in June, 2010 for her Grand Canyon project, in which composers found musical inspiration in specific themes suggested by the Grand Canyon. I chose water. This is the recording she made on MSR Classics.
Here's Herine Coetzee Koschak's performance of it in March, 2014.
Flutudes (2008,9) for Mary Fukushima. Here is the premiere of the first two. I don't have a recording of the third one. Mary has recorded them, with Ram Tough on alto flute. Yowza! They also have their own entry here.
Elegy is an arrangement of the solo piano piece Sara (2002) made by Carson Cooman. It is published by CF Peters, Edition 68131a. This performance is by Alexander Lane. The Squeaky Wheel (1998) was written so Beff could have a piece to demonstrate her E-flat clarinet (she had pieces for her other clarinets) to groups of students. I said no, until I thought of the title. This is Beff.
Junctures (1978) is juvenilia, but is a real hoot. This is the premiere performance by Julie Soloway on the Aeolian-Skinner organ of the Church of the Advent in Boston, the hardware for which is was written. Solo hand drum pieces played by Michael Lipsey are here.
#18 Mind the Gap (Crisply and stridely). For Sarah Bob. A recomposing and recasting of some material from my own Stolen Moments, whose pianist Sarah was in BMOP's recording of the piece. This is Sarah's recording on Avie Records. #19 Mind the Gap (Of two minds). To Augusta Read Thomas. The intrusive repeated-note motive turned out to be very much like a fanfare motive in a Gusty piece, so I dedicated the piece to her. #20 Mind the Gap (With precision, grodiness, and wild eyes). Yet another variant of the Davy broken octaves thing.
Arabesques I Have Known (2016) was commissioned by Boston Musica Viva. The green keyboard in the madcap third movement is a Suzuki Andes keyboard, and the part was written for Geoffrey Burleson. Watch on YouTube and look at the comments for clickable movement beginnings.
Natura Morta (2015) for piano quartet was commissioned by Network for New Music. This is a performance by Musiqa in Houston on January 7, 2017.
This is the premiere performance by Network for New Music in Philadelphia on April, 2016.
Compass (2010) was commissioned by a consortium of ten saxophone quartets, led especially by Taimur Sullivan of the Prism Quartet, who premiered it in New York and Philadelphia in June, 2011. It was entirely written at Yaddo in November, 2010. This is a performance by the h2 quartet at Cortona Sessions in June, 2012. Same great performance, same audio, different video feed.
Here is Prism doing the first movement at the Philadelphia Settlement School in April, 2017.
This is Prism Quartet's recording on their own XAS label.
This is the 2018 recording by the Iridium Quartet on Blue Griffin Recording.
Talking Points (Right Wing Echo Chamber) was written in the summer of 2010 and commissioned by the Orchestra of the League of Composers. It was written for Fred Sherry, the cello soloist in this video. This is the only multi-camera movie of music of mine I've encountered, and alas, the side camera shots aren't synced with the music.
Talking Points (Right Wing Echo Chamber) - David Rakowski from Manhattan New Music Project on Vimeo. Mikronomicon was written in May to August of 2009 and commissioned by Boston Musica Viva. It is a micro-piano concerto written specifically for Geoff Burleson, so the jazzy of the first movement and the funky of the last are all about him and his playing. The title is a hybrid of microconcerto and necronomicon — obviously Beff and I were channeling Army of Darkness when we were coming up with a title for the piece.
Here are both movements filmed separately in an awesome performance by James Barger and Helen Blackburn in April, 2015.
Here are Heather Jost and Lauren Armstrong playing it on a junior recital at Lawrence University in 2013.
Here is the recording, auto-generated by YouTube.
Hyperblue is the first of my three piano trios, commissioned by the Fromm Foundation for the Itzkoff-Shapiro-Rider Trio. I wrote it in 1991-93 -- which is to say I wrote a bunch, threw it all out, wrote some more, didn't know what to do next, and finished it in a whirlwind when a March 1993 premiere was set. The movements are played attacca, but you know.
Attitude Problem was written for the Triple Helix Trio in 1995-96. This trio was formed out when Gerry Itzkoff left town and Bayla Keyes replaced him on violin in the trio for whom Hyperblue was written. Again, the movements are played without pause. The first movement got a severe haircut after the premiere.
Sesso e Violenza for two flutes, piano, percussion, and string trio was written in 1995-96 at the American Academy in Rome and was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation for ensemble 21. The title simply states that I think of low flute as sexy and high flute as violent. As was so often the case at this time, the movements are to be performed attacca.
Gli Uccelli di Bogliasco (2006) for flute/piccolo and two pianos. This is not a movie, but Mike Kirkendoll put the recording of the premiere on his SoundCloud page, so here it is. Mary Fukushima plays flute and piccolo, and the pianists are Mike and Nathanael May.
Also not a movie, the first movement of a flute and piano piece called Firecat from 1994 (the title is from a Wallace Stevens poem Earthy Anecdote). Mike and Mary Fukushima (the duo of DuoSolo) learned it, and it sure is hard and sure does have a lot of notes.
Cell'Out is a piece for four 'celli, written for Rhonda Rider and her constellation, that outgrew its moorings. Here is the second movement played by eleven 'cellos (one of them Rhonda) at Music from Salem.
Disparate Measures (2006) is a piano quintet written for the Stony Brook Contemporary Players. Totally written at Yaddo, and the first movement responds to the Great Blue Herons I saw flying close to the windows of my studio daily. The other two movements don't.
Here is another performance of Take Jazz Chords, Make Strange from the early 21st century.
Inside Story (2005) is my third piano trio, and was written for Curt Macomber's trio at his festival in Vermont with Norm Fischer and Jeanne Kierman. I wrote the first movement just as we got new kittens, so their playing and jumping around is portrayed therein. This performance is Speculum Musicæ.
AhChim AnGae (2009) was written for the Pacific Rim Music Festival, and is for haegeum (Korean fiddle) and string trio. This is the performance at Brandeis with members of the Del Sol Quartet. The title is Korean for "morning fog". Diverti (1991) for clarinet and piano. The "perky" movement, called Per Che, was written for Beff and Geoff to play at Spencer high school. The movements that precede it, Pourquoi and Warum, were added to round out the set. All the movements are built around the motto B-E-F-F, which opens the piece. Published by CF Peters, Edition 67542. This is Beff with Sandra Sprecher.
Stolen Moments (2008) commissioned by Merkin Hall as a response to jazz. Original performers were the Lark Chamber Artists, Zephyros Winds and Tony de Mare. This is the University of Indiana New Music Ensemble in October, 2014 conducted by David Dzubay.
Dances in the Dark (1996, 1998). Suite from a children's ballet. This is NYNME.
#93 Polkritude (polka étude) To Jim Ricci. Jim blogged about wanting to write a modernist polka. So I did, too. This is Mary Kefferstan's premiere of it. Here is Amy Briggs's recording of it on Bridge.
Amy also made a provisional video of it.
#94 Knocksville (knocking and hitting étude) At Harold Meltzer. #95 Flit (on uneven repeated notes and swirls) For I-Chen Yeh. She asked for something close to Ravel's Scarbo, but that's not my thing. Also, she chose the two tonic notes for the piece -- violin open G and F a 14th higher. #96 Double Cross (cross accents) The name came from Adam Marks as the winner of a title sweepstakes on Facebook. Here's Finale MIDI.
#97 Quietude (dominant seventh chords) To Augusta Read Thomas. Here's Amy Briggs doing it at the AAAL in a recording session.
Here is Kathy Lee performing it at Indiana University.
This is Kara Huber performing it in Toronto.
#98 Mosso (fast arpeggios in both hands) To Geoffrey Burleson. And taking off on Chopin's "ocean wave" étude. #99 Mano War (irregular hand alternation) MIDI below.
#100a Erdnußbutter on chromatic scales. #100b Cioccolato on crescendo/diminuendo repeated chords. #100 Two Great Tastes — Erdnußbutter and Cioccolato played at the same time.
#82 F This (one note) to Marilyn Nonken and Ken Ueno. One of Marilyn's students had asked her if anyone of note had written a one-note piano piece, she asked me, I said Ken would know, and Ken's response was that there wouldn't be one until I wrote it. So ... I did.
#83 M'Aidez (escaping arpeggios) For Nathanael May. The title is a pun on his name.
#84 What's Hairpinning (dynamic swells and simple polyrhythms)
This is Amy Briggs's performance of it on Bridge.
#85 Diminishing Return (fading repeated notes) This one was written in Italy at Civitella Ranieri when I had no ideas, at first, for the big piece I'd hoped to write there. Another of my favorites.
This is Amy Briggs's performance in a recording session at the AAAL.
Here is Kathy Lee playing it in a dress rehearsal at Indiana University.
Here is Kathy's performance from that night. #86 Prog Springs Eternal (prog rock) To Rick Moody and Geoffrey Burleson. This was a challenge from Rick Moody that had us both scratching our heads until I talked with Geoff about it, after which I had a clear idea of what I could do.
Amy Briggs's recording of it on Bridge.
#87 Berceuse (five-finger étude for piano, toy piano, or piano and toy piano) To Rick Moody, Amy Osborn, and Hazel Jane.
Here's Karl Larson's performance of it from a recording session at Bowling Green State, with piano in the left hand and toy piano in the right. Amy Briggs recorded it both on toy piano and on celesta. Here is the celesta version.
#88 Toyed Together (étude with toy piano) Here's Amy playing through it, at her house. Amy's recording on Bridge.
#89 This Means Warble (on two-note warbling figures) MIDI below. Inspired by the chippy sounds of winter birds. Which I noticed one cold January afternoon as I was cleaning bird poop from my front porch, as a winter bird had made its home in the front porch light. This is the recording of it on Bridge.
#90 Solid Goldie (étude on G-C-H in search of a lullaby). For Marilyn Nonken and Goldie Celeste. Goldie is Marilyn's first daughter, and has the initials G-C-H; it quotes the Brahms lullaby because why not?
This is Amy Briggs performing it at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in a recording session.
This is Marilyn Nonken's performance at Brandeis in October, 2019.
This is Don playing it. #72 Dorian Blue (on two-hand flourishes) For Donald Berman and commissioned by the Argosy Foundation. This is Don playing. And this is Amy Briggs reading through it (a provisional performance) at her place. #73 Heavy Hitter (fortissimo) For Michael Kirkendoll. It takes off on some of the licks from the cadenza of my Piano Concerto, and it was Mike's idea! #74 Not (talking pianist étude). For Adam Marks and using a text written by Rick Moody.
This is Amy doing it during a recording session at the AAAL, and obviously having fun. Rick Moody was in the audience.
#75 Twilight (melodic thirds) and quoting the Zwielicht song from Schumann's Op. 39. It's a strange piece, and this is Amy's recording of it on Bridge. The ending is pretty.
#76 Clave (on the clave rhythm) For Geoffrey Burleson. Amy's recording on Bridge.
#77 Ecco Eco (echo étude) For Corey Hamm. Here Amy plays it at the American Academy of Arts and Letters. #78 Upon Reflection (slow mirror étude) to Michael Kirkendoll. The two hands exactly mirror each other. This is a demo that Amy made before she recorded the piece in June 2014.
#79 Narcissitude (fast mirror étude) to Michael Kirkendoll. For most of the piece, the left hand is the exact mirror inversion of the right hand, and one sixteenth note later. Here's Amy at the AAAL again. This is Kathy Lee playing it at a dress rehearsal at Indiana University. For this one, I filmed the inside rather than the Kathy.
This is Kathy's performance that night.
#80 Fireworks (arpeggio étude) and blatantly stealing from Debussy's prelude feux d'artifice. Here's Karl's SoundCloud from a 2012 performance at Bowling Green State.
#67 Ain't Got No Right (left hand only). This is Geoff Burleson's performance of it at the 2015 Tribeca New Music festival.
This is Amy Briggs's recording on Bridge.
#68 Absofunkinlutely (funk) To Rick Moody, whose idea it was. After a climax, there is a bar that can be repeated 3 to 7 times. Amy takes it to the max. Here Kara Huber plays it at the World Piano Competition in June, 2014, and she takes it to the max, too. Nice framing music.
Here's Kara Huber again, a year later, in a private recording session in Toronto.
#69 Palm de Terre (clusters) Bo Kyung Hwang's performance.
#70 Stutter Stab (sharp dynamic contrasts). A personal favorite.
