Premiere: 19 October 2013 at Razzo Hall, Clark University, Worcester, MA
Brett Maguire, piano
Duration: 10’
Instrumentation: solo piano
Performance note:
Cloches draws on music I wrote for my now-withdrawn Wedding Preludes (2008). Ambitious though the earlier piece was, it proved virtually impossible to perform and was plagued by some immature compositional excesses. The new piece eschews, I trust, the last and, while it’s no cakewalk from a technical standpoint, is at least somewhat less formidable than its predecessor.
As the title suggests, each movement of Cloches is a study in bell-like sonorities. The first movement, “Cloches de folie” (“Bells of Insanity”) alternates two primary ideas: a trill-like figure that grows into an angular melody, and the chiming of bells. A nervous energy pervades the entire movement, though it’s quickly spent.
The second movement, “Cloches d’amour,” takes its formal model from several movements of Ligeti’s first book of Etudes. In this movement, gently arpeggiated figures float up, are gradually anchored by weighty, chiming sonorities, and then dissipate into the ether.
Meantime, the finale, “Cloches de joie,” features some of the most severe music I’ve yet written. Again, two primary ideas alternate: fiercely pealing bell-like chords and a Russian Orthodox chorale melody. At the zenith of the movement, both are heard simultaneously, before a cacophonous coda wraps up the piece in a haze of sound.
Cloches is dedicated to my friend, the pianist Daria Scarano.