Small Music (2012/13)
Piano Four Hands
Duration: approx. 8'
Commissioned by Mathias Trapp
Performance:
- Robert Christoph Bauer, Shih-Yu Tang | Chamber Music Hall of the University of Music Freiburg | June 23, 2013
While I was a student at the University of Music Freiburg, Mathias Trapp, a professor of piano, asked me if I would write some easy piano pieces for the students in his class whose main instruments were not the piano. These three pieces and the piece 'For Neli' were written as a result. The three pieces can also be performed separately. Each piece focuses on one compositional aspect. The first piece is a cross-over of two temporal layers. The octaves at the beginning (in 'fff'), which have a diminishing distance of 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 sixteenth notes from each other, are set against the sequence of chords with increasing distances of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 sixteenth notes. The chords become increasingly vague, forming clusters towards the end of the piece, which thematically leads to the second piece. The second piece juxtaposes three recurring single notes in three different registers of the instrument (lower, middle, and upper registers) with a light cluster-melody and its resonance. The cluster sequence sounds as if a simple melody is distorted so that only its melodic contour remains. The third piece again works with the repetition of a very small number of notes and their resonances.