Modern Music for Piano by Various Artists

In this work, the composer draws inspiration from the free dance in the streets of Sao Paulo do Brazil during the Carnival. The piece doesn't want to be a description of the dances but rather a musical translation of its artistic idea. The flow continuously changes, the appearance of opposite elements that interchange in a never repetitive flow, like dancer movements. The work is, therefore, a tribute to dance, to dynamism, a tribute to life, expressed by intense rhythm, melodic, and timbrical contrasts.

The piece is in form of piano "Toccata", structurally divided into two parts. The strong dynamic and rhythmic aspects, emerges immediately, at the beginning. Then gradually, melodic elements lead to a sort of cantabile part which turns into an introspective moment, that insists on the lower timbre of the piano. Gradually, rhythmical dynamism and dynamic strength return to the foreground.

The second part, even if characterized by greater freedom, is linked to the first one by harmonic, rhythmic and melodic elements. We find again a great variety of elements, derived one from the other, in a continuous flow, like a logical dialogue.

The lyrical, sentimental section finally extinguishes transitioning into the quick and intense finale, the unbridled dance predominates, in a crescendo of energy, up to a sudden exhaustion.

DIMENSIONS Nr 7

This impressive and melodious work is part of a larger collection composed by Philippe Mathis. Philosophically inspired by numbers and their correspondence with dimensions of the Universe. Number 7 corresponds to the seven states of matter.


Dimensions 7 won the Prize of the composition competition “The contemporary piano 2018” in Athens (Greece).

"Zig Zag Bubble" was written by M. Molteni in 1999/2000 and marks the beginning of a long series of piano pieces. Unlike other works composed by the author and titled "Fogli" characterized by a limited duration and an improvised approach to the piano, "Zig Zag Bubble", which lasts around 3:30 minutes, originates from an initial project of writing a "Sonata" for piano ...

Images 微弱的印象浮現
於杯中 不停努力尋找著
喜樂支配與恐懼
征服 牆上天花板的提示
以為找到並下結論的
答案 不過是水中
幻影 被喝下前的一個印象

Translation:
A faint impression emerges
in the cup, (we) constantly try to find
a joyful domination and fear
to be conquered, the tips from wall and ceiling
(we) thought (we) have found and concluded
the answer, but it is only in the water
an Impression before being drunk

Explanation:
We would get different directions when we were seeking a dream. Different directions would give us different journeys. We would meet different people and experience different colours and flavours of life. Trees have become dark flames; Nights have split into pieces. One day, we will all arrive at our own destination. But is it the place that we have dreamed of? Maybe life itself is just an illusion - but it is our own Image.

by Anna Vienna Ho

The composer has structured this piano piece on a “ground bass” as a loose representation of diffraction in the waveform and the work is derived from an aspect of the scientist John Tyndall’s research into wave “diffraction”, which means that a wave will spread out as it goes through a gap or an obstacle.
Similarly to a wave spreading out, the work opens in the low register of the piano and gradually the ground bass filters through the other registers producing different harmonic implications and different timbres, just as different colours are represented in the spectrum on the wave encountering an obstacle, so too in this case, is the correlation between the various registers on the piano and the harmonic spectrum.

Anagram no. 2 for solo piano – "Modal versus Whole Tones"

The work is inspired by the system of anagram and by the questions "Can two different systems be combined into one? Can they interact with one another?" 

As explained by the composer, an anagram is a type of pun, it's the result of rearranging the letters of a word or a phrase in order to produce a new word, using all the original letters exactly once; for example "CAT" can be rearranged into "ACT". In the same way, A. Weiner believes that all music can be seen and treated as an anagram – taking a specific set of notes, and rearranging them in a different order, over and over again, to an infinite number of possibilities…

This Anagram no. 2 combines two musical languages into one. This is a technique often used by A. Weiner which brings together two or more musical idioms, genres, etc. into one organic piece.
Here, the modal world of A Aeolian mode meets the whole tone scale. The result is sometimes clusters of those two systems, sometimes a new kind of scale of both of them, and sometimes one of them is an accompaniment to the other.
The usage of the piano pedal is very meticulously planned throughout this piece, where colours are emerging from one to the other, almost like a painting.

In this work, the composer uses a mix of relentless ostinato, and its transmutations, and various interactions with other elements, to create a sense of stability and, at the same time, avoid a sense of stagnation.

The constructive element is a cell that is initially used non-stop in perfect ostinato-style and that, almost like in a natural progress, changes and transforms itself without never losing its identity.

If on one end ostinato helps making the work easier to memorise and helps creating a certain stability - or ground - upon which other elements can freely move, on the other end an excessive use of the same cell can create a sense of stagnation - or immutability - that here is challenged every time the composer moves into different registers.

At the same time, non-stop changes would generate a sense of groundless dizziness that here is never really experienced as the piece moves in and out from ostinato into other figures.

The resulting sound is an interesting blend of lively articulations, and its intricacies, and a fast grounded ostinato that never rests, even when transferred to a higher register. The tonal traditional closing brings an ironic nuance that leaves the listener with a sense of defiance.

Beginning with a simple theme in a folk-like style, Impromptu progresses to a central section dominated by a driving rhythmic fugue whose subject seems to evolve naturally from the original folk-like tune while it struggles with two very contrasting countersubjects. The fugue then morphs into a colourful, wave-like retransition. As the waves subside, the original theme emerges.

Impromptu was written at the request of Milica Jelača Jovanović who gave the first performance at Western Washington University in 2007.

This piece is inspired by the concept of Chinese ink-wash painting. The density of the pitch and pulse are directly correlated and are a product of the feeling experienced while thinking about the varying of ink-density in the Chinese ink-wash painting. The whole piece thus references varying ink load and pressure within a single brushstroke, like that of the Chinese ink wash painting.

As suggested by the title the work is dedicated to and inspired by the Japan city and municipality of Yokohama. Starting from 1859 the city gradually grew in population due to international trading and is today the second most populous city in Japan after Tokyo. The city's culture is an expression of such a rich mix of Eastern and Western traditions.

The work here presented is mainly driven by the love for the city and nostalgy (Nostalgia in Italian) felt by the composer when visiting its historical buildings, harbour, and sea.

The main body of the work is based upon an original reharmonization of "Akai Kutsu (Red Shoes)," a widely known Japanese piece written by poet Ujō Noguchi and composed by Nagayo Motoori in 1922.

Fragments of the original theme of "Red Shoes" are incorporated in the work and mixed to a variety of others elements influenced and inspired by eastern and western tunes alike (oriental or jazz-flavoured melodies and harmonies can be both felt) as the composer tries to evoke and express the rich cultural mix anyone can experience while in Yokohama but with a nuance of love and nostalgia.

Sideralis – starlit, sidereal - in the composer's words: "it ’s a look to the Unseen.

Here the philosophy (or mindset) of both architects of the piece (composer - performer) - coincides. The performer, Daumantas Kirilauskas, fully revealed the conception of the work."