Thursday, August 6, 2015

Preludes Book 6

Préludes Book VI was started at the Hambidge Center in northern Georgia in June, 2015 and finished in Maynard, Massachusetts in September, 2016. Here the conceit is that every title is gibberish.

Wayo (#51) is a slow passacaglia on a 3-bar theme written for Sarah Bob. Wayo is something her 13-month old daughter said. Here is Sarah's recording.




Gfornafratz (#52) is based around fast broken octaves. Here's the crappy MIDI.



Twünk (#53) is based on fast scales in swing eighths. Beff came up with the title through the following process: The beginning sounds tinkly. Tinkle. Twinkle. Twink. Twunk. Twünk. Here is the crappy MIDI.



Fløpie (#54) starts as if it were a falling-thirds étude, and gradually adds complications that accumulate to broken-octave boogie woogie things in the left hand.

Twîfff (#55) is an irregular scales étude that slowly builds chords and evaporates them. Here is the crapfest MIDI.



Lèþidomm (#56), by virtue of its number being a multiple of 14, extracts music from my second piano concerto, frames it such that it begins and ends, and is dedicated to Amy Briggs. This one takes the very beginning of the piece, which is supposed to take off from Martler, and tacks on a little concert ending. This is a video of Amy playing that beginning before I wrote that 1-bar concert ending. 



Gnöpélledie (#57) was written on a request for a Satie-inspired piece. There is a reference to the first Gymnopédie in it, but otherwise it's not very Satie-like, except perhaps poetically.

Sprüllinəƒ (#58) is another broken octave prelude. Here is the crapfest MIDI.



Füllingræ (#59) was written for David Falterman as a promise in a twitter thread. It starts out like a repeated-note toccata and goes in some slightly different directions. This is the crapfest MIDI.



Krœłstächs (#60) alternates between rising lines that start in the low register and restricted register melodies and figuration that falls.