Prelude No.4

Ooooooooh.

Really, really, liked it. I take it you're a big fan of Kapustin? This really reminded me of the opening bars of his Intermezzo (his 3rd Etude, I think?), with bits of his sixth prelude or even a teensy bit of the pastoral etude thrown in. All of which made for a very nice combination -- a very laidback, languido/ma non troppo kinda feel. I used to play Kapustin back when I was studying the piano, and this really, really, made my fingers itch.

I also really appreciated the number of pleasing jazz idioms that were woven together in rapid succession so that a molto perpetuo feel was sustained without the piece ever becoming anything like stale. So you have the half-syncopated run in m11, and a reintroduction of the "main theme" + a small harmonically lovely transition before the RH figurations of m17 take over and spice things up.

To nitpick in the friendliest way possible:

1. I thought there would be more far-out modulations (though they were there in the 2nd half of the piece), since this jazz style quite easily (sometimes even unconsciously, don't you think?) lends itself to very rapid and smooth "tonal skiing", what with substituted chords and 11ths and 13ths and complex dominants and stacked fourths babbly bloobly blah. This isn't really a criticism per se, but I was just wondering at a possibly unexploited avenue of colorization. For instance, why not let m17 run for a bit into Ebm or Gb for a bar before lassoing it back in?

2. I thought that possibly the harmony could have been pushed more -- more of m7 and less of m3, I mean. I get a feeling that m19 and 21 will really benefit from a thorough thumping out in in an odder key with greater dissonance, especially since by themselves they're not that immediately eye-catching.

3. Some bits were rhythmically a bit too conventional, and actually stood out a bit too much because of that. Take the LH figurations in m53.54, m50, m4. It might be the computerized performance, but it's hard to tell.

4. I get a really strange gut feeling that the textures are somehow a bit to thin, a bit too easy to understand -- you know when you learn a jazz piece and a run does not make sense until you're 20 notes into it, or how a Kapustin prelude changes key and you go, "what?" until you see the suspension on top of the suspension on top of the substituted C13(#11) chord or whatever, and you hear the sense after a while. Of course this may just be a massive load of bollocks on my part, since I'm too used to Kapustin, who is always accused of overcomplicating and putting in too many notes anyway.

Okay, hope this helped in its strange, rambling, incoherent way. Cheers,

Ashish

A fine mixture of Rachmaninov and Gershwin, although your prelude remains relatively diatonic in nature.

I really enjoyed this Ian, I can't wait to hear more.

Thanks for the comments, everybody.

@xiangyik
I wouldn't mind being called a fan of Kapustin, although I'm not as avid of one as you seem to be. I'd be lying if I said that the composer didn't have an influence on this; his music is also in my repertoire. Thanks for the thought-out and genuine criticisms.

Yuuuummmm, this is delicious. I feel like I'm eating a piece of cinnamon popping candy when I listen to this =P-

Chill! Listened it for 3 times now. And in the end the recap repetition is a tad to much. So the general advise that follows from this remark is: do not listen this three times on a row.

But I did. And that was because I liked it. So much.
If you feel the need to alter it, you could take a look at a lightly more variated recap. But I don't think it is that necessary. Well done.

Well... this is a nice testament of piano writing, I say!

It has this semi-jazzy element with the manner you displace the chords and melodic fragments... But the harmonic progression is not in the jazz elements too much (though there are flavors)...

It would surely benefit from a live performance.

Nice update, love the live performance

This is so joyful!!! I like the accented syncopation, makes it such a suitable piece for dance! I can imagine people tap-dancing with this..

Ian, I thought you dead, but you rollin'. This piece is great! I didnt look at the score cause I won't understand it anyway, but it sounded so much fun. Thank someone I waited for your performance upload

very playful and nice piece, it did remind me quite a bit of kapustin as well...jazzy prelude kinda thingy..

very nicely done.

I decided to print this and practice it. Likey likey...

This sucks, it doesn't sound like anything I've heard before. Why can't you write more like Tidemand/Corelli/Albinoni/Locatelli? Get a wig already.

Nowadays I'm practicing kapustin concert etude no.1 for performance- I'm surprised that there are so many similar figures, and rhythm ))) But it's very interesting and good to listen! Nice work!

I'm listening 4 times ))) it's so exciting

From 41- It's very fresh x) love it

1:30- somebody washed the hands? xD

Good for the Main menu of Sonic and some other Sega arcade games