Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 09/09/2007, uploaded on 06/24/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

The piece is based on an original, pointillist theme followed by nineteen variations and a coda.  The thematic material is presented in its most basic form at the beginning of the work.  A six-note cell (E-flat/F/E/B-flat/D-flat/D) is the source material for the entire work and is almost always present in some form.  Something else that gives the Variations their characteristic sound is my fascination in wide intervals and jagged lines combined with a variety of rhythmic elements, all of which are developed throughout the piece.
It takes only ten minutes to traverse the twenty-one sections of the work (theme, variations and coda). Progress, therefore, from one powerful episode to the next is swift.  There are, however, a few important compositional elements that are noteworthy to point out.  The first part of Variations is development of the triplet figure of the theme and the chordal elements that expand and contract throughout the work.  The jagged lines become ore jagged as the piece progresses and takes on many personalities:  aggressive, lyrical, etc.
Variation H marks the second part of the piece, as it now has taken a sharp turn into a slow and more disjointed approach to the theme.  As this section develops, it becomes more intense in both rhythm and harmony, which then transitions into part three at Variation N.  The music gradually becomes more diverse in every dimension: rhythmic, harmonic and textural.  Complexity and energy rapidly increase through the remainder of the piece until the coda, which bursts free from the confines of the form.  In the work’s final moments, the theme is stated as a way to firefly point out the piece’s humble beginnings as it screams the last brilliant gesture.