Product Description
Vagabond Jonathan Williams (b. 1991)
As the title suggests, Vagabond lacks a tonal center, or key (i.e. C major). Some refer to all such music as atonal, yet sections of this piece include a variety of chords and chord progressions that hint towards traditional tonality. For example, the first three rolled chords could be labeled B diminished, A major seventh, and F dominant ninth, respectively. Regardless of their possible names, these are chords commonly heard in tonal music, especially classical and jazz works.
While the piece weaves through hinted key areas, the melody wanders as well. The first two measures of the unaccompanied, opening theme include all twelve pitch classes (A, A, B, , G, G) exactly once. This is called a row, and it is essential to twelve-tone music as first created by Arnold Schönberg (1874 - 1951). The remainder of Vagabond exclusively includes manipulations of the opening row. Various renderings of the row are audibly similar, while the majority obscure their resemblance by splitting the row across the hands, combining adjacent notes into chords, or modifying the rhythm.
After a final reprise of the opening, Vagabond commences with a series of fading chords and a last chord that may sound like a dominant seventh chord in its least common inversion. In this context, the sound and feel of a dominant seventh chord is lost. While this quality is frequently used as a penultimate chord to instill intensity before an anticipated finale, in Vagabond it serves to let the listener imagine an endless wandering.
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