Variations On Ancient Themes (2 pianos)

Six old, undeveloped, themes in minor keys, exhumed, expanded, varied, and arranged for two pianos...

Hope you enjoy!

Description:

Eb Minor

0:00 -- 0:54 My old modulating "Duende theme"

0:54 -- 2:13 Variation 1: Rhythmic and jazzy

2:13 -- 2:54 Variation 2; Homage to Ligeti, utilizing a Shepherd's scale against the main theme, rising and modulating ever upwards, to the apogee of C8, before crashing like Icarus all the way back to A0 Lots of fun!

2:54 -- 3:52 Variation 3: An "impressionistic canon"(?) that leads to a bombastic finale

F Sharp Minor

0:00 -- 0:18 A strange theme, to me, but one I enjoy, mysterious

0:18 -- 0:47 Variation 1: Expanded theme, with driving triplets in the bass

0:47 -- 2:05 Variation 2: Virtuosic, frenzied harmonies in the upper registers against rhythmic bass octaves

2:05 -- 3:05 Variations 3: A joyful 2 voice invention (that I love) leads to recapitulation of the strange theme, a couple octaves lower

A minor:

0:00 --0:09 A lovely modern theme

0:09 -- 0:40 Variation 1: RIch harmonics, pleasant resolution

0:40 -- 2:08 Variation 2: Richer still, highly virtuosic, with a modulated recapitulation and strong (fake) ending

2:08 -- 2:45 Variation 3: A cheerful four voiced fughetta concludes

B minor:

0:00 -- 0:17 The most recent theme, a discussion between Heaven and hell

0:17 --1:10 Variation1: The discussion becomes passionate, tragic

0:10 -- 2:12 Variation 2: one long cadence, with occasional kibitzing above from high, high repeated sixteenths

2:12 -- 3:00 Variation 3: A vigorous and growling recap

E minor:

0:00 -- 0:38 very cool, sometimes dssonant theme

0:38 -- 0:52 Variation 1: Lovely cantabile, with octave leaps

0:52 -- 1:28 Variation 2: Rhythmic and fun

1:27 -- 2:08 Variation 3: Transcendent and frenzied, with a bouncing coda

G Minor

0:00 -- 0:44 old fashioned salon theme from my childhood, but still exciting to me

0:44 -- 1:22 Variation 1: very scherzando

1:22 -- 2:51 Variation 2: marked by flowing arpeggios and morbid dance numbers, ending in a straight recapitulation

2:51 -- 3:51 Variation 3: An unquiet cadenza

3:51 -- 6:54 Variation 4: A stately, thematic waltz concludes. Very romantic

Last Try: 2 Piano Variations

Love it! very impressive! a score would be nice

Gee, thanks!

Okay, I put the scores up...

Listened to the first piece - Liked it a lot, a lot of harmonic progressions and melodic phrases are from Gershwin, no? Really enjoyable, will take a look at other pieces soon too!

Sorry to "bump" (just once, I promise) but I was wondering if perhaps anyone else had any opinions (good, bad) on the variations?

Just wanted to say that this is really really amazing work. I can't really give any constructive criticism because it's way too complex for ignorant me, but whatever it is, it sounds brilliant. Great job! :) Hoping you'll upload more stuff to this site haha.

I'll give a listen and review. :)

...provided I remember. x_x

Haha, thanks! You know, these works are really a microcosm (hmm..."Mikrokosmos?") that manages to encapsulate everything I think is best and representative of my own music: size and contrast

Size: I've always thought that more is more and not less. Remember, in Peter Schaffer's Amadeus, what the childlike emperor's italian advisor told him, and which he of course then came to believe himself, "too many notes?" When done carefully, as Mozart did and I try to do, there is literally no such thing. In these pieces I layer 'em on in sheets!

Contrast: I strive for complexity, but only because, to me, that sounds good, and never so much that the music is rendered inaccessible.

That notion, "accessible" has been a contentious sore for longer than we admit in this business. I'll always contend that Schoenberg's axiom of "Freeing Music from the Consonant" was an ingenious and subtle way for an erudite composer to rationalizie his own snobbery. Whether or not (I sense a controversy) he has "Liberated the Dissonant" (which of course has led to a bondage for the Consonant greater and more bitter than the Dissonant ever knew) he did not do so organically. It was not, I don't imagine, his communal, "Everybody gets a turn" 12-tone ideas that occurred to him a priori (his early works are quite tonal) nor did he even arrive to them out of necessity (there are vastly better ways to produce atonal music than to assure there can be no other possible result)!

And what a precedent! The 20th century would have been the "bloodiest" without the benefit of a single war, for real music as all but bled out, usurped by mathematics, machinations, and the human need to control. He was a snob. Which really is the same as saying he was a human being, but this human being had clout!

Charismatic, celebrated men, with all their unilateral authority, well-placed in history, can literally shut things down for a couple centuries. I remember avidly reading the essay Charles Ives wrote to accompany his wonderful Concord Sonata. Most pronounced was his passion for dissonance, and the strengthening of musical muscle.

A Yale man, he believed that what lay listeners often mistake for beauty is merely accessible and unchallenging, and of course he was right!

He did what Schoenberg claimed to want to do, but he liberated Dissonance naturally, via the best tool in the composer's shed: he contrasted and juxtaposed it with classic Consonance. The 12 tone tyranny (I'm a liberal, but this seems to be akin to the tea party's revulsion for "Socialism") leaves no room for actual contrast, and we are musically musclebound!

When Ives said what he said, perhaps he was right, but what the sophisticated listener now mistakes for complex and profound is actually pretentious and deadening, so perhaps we need to indulge for a while in what we really hunger for; rich, fattening, naive and decadent music, the better to balance ourselves out!

nice set of pieces. I knew the first. Until I saw that you reused your duende theme, it made sense

I have listened to the first 3 now. And an overall remark is that, although I really like it, it is somehow much of the same. I think when you use sequences, they continue just a little too long. Maybe it is because you need to return to your home key, but it makes it sometimes much of the same.

In regard to the ostinato octave thing in the 2nd piece I was hoping that you altered it a little, in rhythm, or in order of the notes, whatever, but again it was just a little too much of the same. Otherwise these are very nice pieces. I would clean up the score a little, though...

Keep up!

Thanks all, for your thoughts! It's true, the scores themselves could be polished, and the tunes further developed...

All the works are simply outstanding. You make a beautiful treatment of the pianos. Very virtuosistic and plenty of ideas. Certainly, one might feel a little bit from Gershwin in your "duende theme". Regarding the themes, I don't think that's much of the same. You show a lot of contrasting ideas, but I admit that obfuscation with virtuosity could make them feel somewhat monotonous. I don't know if you said it already, or suggested it, or you expect one to take it for granted, but I don't see any of these works as anything than etudes. Is that what you intended ?, They're certainly amazing works, but they all felt as exercises to me, and not real finished music works. Well, this is just a modest opinion. I'm far from being a professional musician, and even further from being a real composer. I just write music for fun, and I'm mostly unable to appreciate properly some of the heavy-weight works that some highly skilled composers use to post here. But I can't get rid from feeling that these are works for very advanced students (piano players and piano composers alike), but not necessarily for exhibition purposes. Maybe you meant that by saying "undeveloped". I apologize if that's the case, but as a non-native english speaker, and I might (and do) miss some of the real significations of certain expressions.

By the way, keep up the good work.

bye.

All the works are simply outstanding. You make a beautiful treatment of the pianos. Very virtuosistic and plenty of ideas. Certainly, one might feel a little bit from Gershwin in your "duende theme". Regarding the themes, I don't think that's much of the same. You show a lot of contrasting ideas, but I admit that obfuscation with virtuosity could make them feel somewhat monotonous. I don't know if you said it already, or suggested it, or you expect one to take it for granted, but I don't see any of these works as anything than etudes. Is that what you intended ?, They're certainly amazing works, but they all felt as exercises to me, and not real finished music works. Well, this is just a modest opinion. I'm far from being a professional musician, and even further from being a real composer. I just write music for fun, and I'm mostly unable to appreciate properly some of the heavy-weight works that some highly skilled composers use to post here. But I can't get rid from feeling that these are works for very advanced students (piano players and piano composers alike), but not necessarily for exhibition purposes. Maybe you meant that by saying "undeveloped". I apologize if that's the case, but as a non-native english speaker, and I might (and do) miss some of the real significations of certain expressions.

By the way, keep up the good work.

bye.

Yes, absolutely right on all counts!

Ligeti, my hero, though my music bears little resemblance to his, spoke candidly about how the impetus behind the writing of his legendary Etudes (these are Etudes too, you're right) was to compensate for his own undeveloped pianism. Well, my own technique is similarly undeveloped, and the impetus is the same! It's like a vicarious fantasy, though in this case vicarious through an inanimate (though pretty lifelike, don't you think?) Garritan Steinway sample!

Lord knows this remains a hobby for me, like most of us. I've had no training, and never had the resources for higher schooling of any kind. It remains a perpetual dream to even have them performed, but for now your kind words will suffice!

I thank you!

These are cute! As jrcramer said earlier I think the score could be cleaned up a bit. Musically these seem to be tautly constructed (if actually a bit conservative, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing!), and it looks like you know what you're doing. Keep it up!

I really like these etudes. I think they are good examples of Neo-Romantic constructions. I was reading a lot of your posts, you seem very well versed in some aspects of music - but, I wonder if you let your opinion get in the way of really understanding much of the 20th century. I used to have that same problem. But, anyways, I won't say much else on that - just thought I'd say you got some nice works here. THanks for sharing!

I really like these etudes. I think they are good examples of Neo-Romantic constructions. I was reading a lot of your posts, you seem very well versed in some aspects of music - but, I wonder if you let your opinion get in the way of really understanding much of the 20th century. I used to have that same problem. But, anyways, I won't say much else on that - just thought I'd say you got some nice works here. THanks for sharing!

Thanks a million, man! And of course you're right. It would be a mistake to think I'm any more than an opinionated windbag on that subject, or really any musical subject.

Still, that post was as fun to write as the etudes were to compose! And since I am not yet, and may never be, a professional musical critic or composer, I don't think it was wrong to think out loud, as I basically was doing, heh.

Happy Christmas to you and everyone on the site, and may you all continue to grow leaps and bounds in the next year, as I hope to!

Ah yes, this piece again :D It's great to hear these with a score as well. Kind of like finding out how a magician pulls off his magic trick :lol: Thanks for sharing! :happy:

Ah yes, this piece again :D It's great to hear these with a score as well. Kind of like finding out how a magician pulls off his magic trick :lol: Thanks for sharing! :happy:

Heh, heh!

I just hope that your reaction to the scores is not like a person being taught how a magician catches a bullet, or escapes from a straight-jacket: disappointed, and sorry they asked!

Thanks for your replies on both sites, Zach! Happy new year!

:santa: