Description
This piece was written in July and August 1996 for a friend who left to live in America and whose name occurs in the music in cipher. The three movements use the titles of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op.81a Les Adieux, but there the resemblance to that work ends.
It was first performed by David Martin at Rochdale Art Gallery, on 22nd January, 1998.
1. Les Adieux - Adagio This is mock-funereal in places, relieved by a tonal motif which occurs in the last movement, and another tonal melody, both set in atonal surroundings.
2. L’Absence - Allegro [Scherzo in Blue] The Scherzo is made up entirely of the notes not including A, B, C, E, and E flat, and includes a blues-like melody. The Trio is a danse macabre made up only of the notes A, B, C, E, and E flat.
3. Le Retour – Allegro Snatches of colonial American folk tunes are given a mock-Beethovenian treatment, but after the tonal motif from the first movement has re-appeared, the notes A, B, C, E, and E flat become a different entity, namely A, B, B flat, C, E, E flat, and this combination of notes is used in the harmonic construction to superimpose a polytonal effect from time to time, not unlike the method used by Charles Ives. The piece ends with a re-working of the beginning of the first movement.
The sound sample here is the scherzo and trio
The whole Sonata can also be downloaded on itunes at
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/piano-sonatas-nos.-1-2/id409820122