Product Description
Program note:
When Tammy Lum asked me to write a piano quintet for her and the Formosa Quartet I jumped at the opportunity. I had written a piano quintet before, but it was a different beast, à la Schuberts Trout Quintet with a double bass. So this is my first with a string quartet.
When I think of piano quintets Robert Schumanns Piano Quintet comes to mind immediately. His is a work of grace and majesty, and the slow second movement breaks my heart every time I hear it.
My Piano Quintet, unlike Schumanns, is in five movements.
I. Adagio, Allegro
II. Largo
III. Interlude
IV. Moderato
V. Largo, Molto Allegro, Moderato, Largo and Molto Allegro.
The first movement begins with a slow chorale prelude that is followed by a majestic theme in the piano - Allegro. The theme passes to the strings and then we are off. There are a couple of sections that are somewhat fugal in treatment. With due respect to J.S. Bach, the tonal answers to my fugue subject are atypical and follow their own whim and fancy.
The second movement was inspired by what I heard on the radio one morning while having breakfast and reading the New York Times - Música Callada by Federico Mompou. Mompou, like Chopin, wrote music almost exclusively for the piano. Instead of the wild, exuberant and virtuosic music we hear from Chopin, Mompou writes simple, quiet and affecting music. I found a great description of Mompous music on-line by pianist Fred Sturm: Música Callada, which means "music without sound," comes from the Cántico Espiritual of St. John of the Cross. As Mompou wrote, "It is very difficult to translate and explain the true sense of "Musica Callada" in a language other than Spanish. The great mystic poet, St. John of the Cross, sings in one of his beautiful poems: "La musica callada, la soledad sonora" seeking to express the idea of a music which is the voice of silence itself; music keeping its own voice 'callada' - that is to say, being silent while solitude itself becomes music."
The third movement is reminiscent of Eastern European folk dance, à la Bela Bartok. Music that is wild and exuberant at the same time, and trance inducing.
The fourth movement is a tango. As in Astor Piazzollas music luscious, passionate and sexy, the melody is heard in the strings while the piano provides a strong and insistent Argentinian beat.
The fifth and last movement could be seen as a set of tableaux evolving through time. It begins slowly with the strings playing very quietly and tremolando. Then the piano comes in with a bold theme in fast 12/8 meter. The strings respond with their own variation of the theme. The piano follows with another variation. The strings answer with yet another version, and so forth. Rather than the typical "theme and variation" set of procedures, this movement is similar to the idea of trading fours between instruments in a jam session. Its more competitive than collaborative. After a huge build-up, the largo music from the beginning returns this time melodies emerge from the fog, and then a brief recap of the original 12/8 theme appears and the work surges into a climax and ends.
Enjoy!!!
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