Three Pieces for Piano (2002)
6:30
solo piano
Notes
These three short piano works represent a dramatic change in my approach to composition. While mired in the drudgery of a different work that had seemingly lost all heart and purpose, I was given the tragic news that the brother of a good friend of mine had been killed in a house fire. As a gesture of sympathy, I set aside what I was working on and composed the short piece In Memoriam for him and his family. To my surprise and happiness, this simple forty-second piece managed to breathe life back into my compositions. While not the most original work - in many regards, it sounds like it could have been composed by Erik Satie - it manages to say more in character and heart than works of mine several times its length
Following upon this, I composed two more short character pieces in the same vein. Strained Inspiration is a brief two-strain rag which could almost be considered incomplete. It is the most rhythmically complex of the three works, and in many ways stands closest to my familiar attitude towards composition. Tango is a slow, sentimental dance that employs tango rhythms in an unusually subtle way. If one were to only listen to the first eight bars, one might not even think it was a tango at all!
The goal of these pieces was to inspire and rejuvenate myself as a composer. Since their inception, more works have sprung forth from this renewed attitude of mine that speak with the same purity and honesty that these do.
Premiered by Robert Hatten
April 8, 2003
Auer Hall
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN
Audio
Three Pieces for Piano: In Memorium
Three Pieces for Piano: Tango
Three Pieces for Piano: Strained Inspiration
PDF Score excerpt