Interludes for piano quartet (1997)
i Dance in Bulgarian Rhythm
ii Nocturne
iii Phasers
iv Finale
30 minutes
Interludes for piano quartet were written for the Potsdam Piano Quartet, who premiered the piece in January, 2000. When I was finishing my student years at the Eastman School of Music in 1977, I wrote a set of Preludes for solo piano, which turned out to be a reflection of (and on) the musical styles and issues which had shaped my work to that time. I had long had the idea that I would write a similar stock-taking piece at some point that felt appropriately "midcareer." The piano quartet turned out to be that piece.
Each movement, then, reflects one or two styles or individual composers whose influence on my work I'd come to recognize. The first movement, "Dance in Bulgarian Rhythm," acknowledges the importance of Bela Bartok's music to my language. If the piece uses an actual Bulgarian rhythm, it's completely by accident; I stole the title from the several pieces in Bartok'sMikrokosmos, all of whose Bulgarian rhythms feature asymmetric meters. The "Nocturne" is an homage to two very different composers of "night music": Frederic Chopin and George Crumb. One can't grow up a pianist without being influenced by Chopin, and Crumb was the composer I most blatantly imitated during the 70's. "Phasers" reflects the interest in aspects of minimalism which colors many of my works from the 90's; the title's evocation of the original Star Trek series is also reflected in the music. The "Finale" borrows ideas from several composers, including Charles Ives, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Olivier Messiaen, but is less intentionally derivative than the first three movements.
i Dance in Bulgarian Rhythm
ii Nocturne
iii Phasers
iv Finale
30 minutes
Interludes for piano quartet were written for the Potsdam Piano Quartet, who premiered the piece in January, 2000. When I was finishing my student years at the Eastman School of Music in 1977, I wrote a set of Preludes for solo piano, which turned out to be a reflection of (and on) the musical styles and issues which had shaped my work to that time. I had long had the idea that I would write a similar stock-taking piece at some point that felt appropriately "midcareer." The piano quartet turned out to be that piece.
Each movement, then, reflects one or two styles or individual composers whose influence on my work I'd come to recognize. The first movement, "Dance in Bulgarian Rhythm," acknowledges the importance of Bela Bartok's music to my language. If the piece uses an actual Bulgarian rhythm, it's completely by accident; I stole the title from the several pieces in Bartok'sMikrokosmos, all of whose Bulgarian rhythms feature asymmetric meters. The "Nocturne" is an homage to two very different composers of "night music": Frederic Chopin and George Crumb. One can't grow up a pianist without being influenced by Chopin, and Crumb was the composer I most blatantly imitated during the 70's. "Phasers" reflects the interest in aspects of minimalism which colors many of my works from the 90's; the title's evocation of the original Star Trek series is also reflected in the music. The "Finale" borrows ideas from several composers, including Charles Ives, Ruth Crawford Seeger, and Olivier Messiaen, but is less intentionally derivative than the first three movements.