w18970
| Title | Piano Sonata |
| Contributors |
Gareth Clemson aka CHEZZ (composer) |
| Composition date | 1971 1969-71 |
| Duration (mins) | 0 |
| Category | keyboard |
| Instrumentation | Pf |
| Commissioned by | |
| Key signature | |
| First line | |
| First performed | |
| Notes | |
| Programme Note | This sonata dates from 1969-1971 with extensive rewriting of the 3rd movement and detailed improvements of movements 1 and 2 made between April and July 1990. The piece is an extended one lasting about 25 mins. There are the usual three movements, the first being grandiose and lyrical in turn; the second contemplative and tinged with melancholy; the third rhythmic, harsh and restless but ending optimistically. All three movements share the feature of being circular in design. This came about on a subconscious level, only becoming apparent many years later, after the piece was originally written. In the first movement, the exposition of the three ideas is reversed in the recapitulation, leading the music back to where it started. In the slow movement, every paragraph seems to lead to the repetition of the same two bar chord sequence. The rhythm and clashing intervals of the last movement recur obsessively even when the music appears to be going somewhere else. Finally, the insistence of C sharp as a tonal centre in the first movement is echoed in the C sharp pedal of the last, acting acting as an embrace for all the music in between. Oddly, this same C sharp repetition makes the concluding cadence on B flat very much more telling. The impetus for writing the piece came from reading Eintein's book on Mozart in which he discusses "le filé" or "the thread", the means whereby Mozart's works hang together and gain their strong sense of unity. This can be clearly felt even though there is often no obvious connection between the ideas. The challenge of linking together different ideas in the form of a musical conversation appealed strongly at the time the Sonata was being composed. |
This work is associated with the following collection items:
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