The BNews - 26-03-18 - Moments musicaux revisited

Today, I finished the second book of my moments musicaux for piano. The first one is from 1989 - nearly 30 years old, some parts even older and one of the first pieces I still consider as a personal work, even though I was still a student then. It was performed a couple of times then, (I still remember my colleague Olga Neuwirth laughing during a performance at the MDW, probably because of the work's vague affinity to minimal music.)

The idea to compose a cycle of piano pieces, each dedicated to a pianist friend, was attractive then as it is now. I have planned to continue this cycle for quite a long time. In the meantime, I composed only two significant solo piano works: FRENZY (quasi una toccata, 1999) and CURTAINS (piano sonata 2, 2015). This year, I started thinking seriously about continuing this cycle, and tragically, one of the planned dedicatees, Ilse Schumann, a brilliant pianist and wonderful person, died very unexpectedly and way to early. After the first shock, I managed to channel my feelings in a new piano piece "beyond the veil", which formed the first piece in the new book. The other two followed shortly after the first one: "LEGO" (kind of a tribute to Guillaume de Machaut), dedicated to my dear long time friend Salvatore Spina who premiered my extremely difficult work "FRENZY" at the Pick-Staiger concert hall of the Northwestern University (Evanston/IL), and "deluge" (inspired by the painting by Winifred Knights (1899-1947)) and dedicated to the young pianist Mario Häring, who premiered my work "Immortal Longings" with soprano Josefine Göhmann, both exceptional talents on the beginning of anticipatedly triumphant careers.

Winifred Knights, The deluge (1920), photo credit: www.apollo-magazine.com


More sequels will follow, and I am sure that this time it will not take another thirty years.

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