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Music for Piano, Piano Four-Hands, Organ, and Harpsichord |
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Harriet Bolz (1909-1995) Floret-A Mood Caprice for Piano Marked Allegretto, this one-movement piece contains a repeated, one-measure LH pattern at the beginning that recurs near the end with a different melodic part in the RH along with some demanding octave passages in the central sections. |
Two Profiles for Piano Compositions of elegant simplicity,
contemporary and lyrical. The first profile is marked Simple,
graceful and the second is Gay, debonair. |
Brill,
Elissa Email: ebrill@hcc.edu Etude: floating and then not (piano
solo) The composer writes: "Etude grew out of a conversation I had with a colleague. We were contemplating what it is about some pieces of music that makes them feel like they are floating on air, and what it is about some other pieces that makes them seem to be so close to the earth. Although there are many other elements at work, one important element seemed to be the nature of the rhythmic resolution. It is the treatment of rhythm that I chose to explore in this piece. The form is ABA, where each A section is mostly floating and the B section is mostly not." |
Story Closet-divertimento
for piano The piece was written in 1986 in five movements: Opening Music, Tennis Racket/Unstrung, Wool Blazer/Circa 1978, Useless Gift, Costume Jewelry. The composer describes her piece as "short sketches of found memories, a light-hearted travelogue through fond childhood thoughts." |
Brockman, Jane Website Character Sketches for piano "most accomplished...fascinating... an aural Rorschach, with side trips " (Los Angeles Times) |
"Her Tell-Tale Fantasy is
a piece with subtle musical quotations-paraphrased allusions
to Scriabin, Schoenberg, Ives and Debussy--intended to
invoke the impression of a pianist, performing a highly
contemporary piece of music, who daydreams and drifts occasionally
into wistful thoughts about masterworks of the early twentieth
century. . . impressive." (Fanfare)
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Casella, Jane The Middle of Fortune
for piano
Ms. Casella has experimented with
a variety of styles among which The Middle of Fortune emerges
as one of her most appealing compositions. |
Diemer, Emma Lou Website Encore for Piano "A strongly melodic piece, Encore is both accessible and enjoyable." (Indiana Gazette) Encore was written in 1981 for Diemer's colleague at the University of California at Santa Barbara, pianist Betty Oberacker. The piece is virtuosic and technically demanding, concerned more with short motives than with extended melodic development. It has been widely performed and is available on a Vienna Modern Masters compact disc. |
Toccata for Piano Repertoire of the Seventeen National
Piano Competition
"Emma Lou Diemer's Toccata is
as unpredictable as it is fun and pleasing. . . a pianistic
adventure" (Fanfare)
"There was a sense of tonality in Miss Diemer's Toccata and a sense of theater that was very striking indeed." (Charleston News & Courier) |
Frasier, Jane Website Festivous Sonata for Piano "distinctive sound and
logical structure that satisfied to the last chord" (Keyboard)
The Sonata has three movements entitled Waltz, Hymn, and Dance. |
Lauer, Elizabeth Six Haiku for Solo Piano Poems by Erik Lauer. Sketches by Amy
Lauer. "captures both the spirit and the specific mood of each poem" (Pan Pipes) |
The six short musical statements of the piece are inspired by six poems written by her son when he was twelve. The first takes into account the haiku pattern of 5 + 7 + 5 syllables. The second expores the extreme ranges of the piano. The fifth makes clear the connection to the clock. And the sixth explores the damper pedal, glissandi, overtones and shifting harmonies. (Notes by the composer.)
Two
Rags à la française for solo piano The two rags were written in 2006 and dedicated to Sandro Russo. They were awarded First Prize in a competition sponsored by the National League of American Pen Women for its biennial in 2006. Lauer describes the origin of the music as follows: "My
favorite word in the French language is 'crépuscule.'
I was repeating the word in my mind one day, when the sounds
of a piano piece came into my head. That bit of what some
might call inspiration is now the introduction to what
has turned out to be a concert rag. A companion work, 'L'Aurore,'
was a foregone conclusion. More than a soupçon of
some aspects
of French musical sounds is to be heard in these pieces." |
Lomon, Ruth (1930-2017) Esquisses for piano "...stands in the grand continuity of writing for piano" (Boston Globe) In three movements completed in 1992, Esquisses is dedicated to pianist Emily Corbato. |
The first piece, Les Cloches, was written while the composer was living in Paris and draws on the complex overtones of European flared tower bells for its harmonic structure. The note pattern of the coda is based on the Grandshire change ringing pattern in which two bells change in each round. La Fete was composed after attending the Native American dances at the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. The rhythmic and melodic character of the the Turtle Dance is the inspiration for this sketch. Memoires de... is the most introspective of the three pieces. The cantabile theme and reminiscences carry the music forward with the inevitability of a ballad.
Five Ceremonial Masks for piano "dazzling" (Lexington Minute Man) "[a] portrait of the mystical
power behind Indian ritual" (Albuquerque Journal)
Each movement of this piece is based on a character or mask from the Navajo Yeibichai Night Chants: Changing Woman, Dancer, Spirit, Clown, and Talking Power. |
Monroe, Deborah Jean Website Variations on a Theme by Johannes
Brahms for Piano Composed in 1995, the Variations won second prize in the annual competition of the International Alliance for Women in Music. |
Polin, Claire (1926-1995) Shirildang,
Trans-Ural Suite for Piano Inspired by Polin's visits to Soviet Georgia and Armenia and her reading of Beliaev's Central Asian Music, Shirildang was commissioned by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts as well as the Russian pianist, Viktor Friedman who has performed the piece throughout Europe. There are four short movements that incorporate an Uzbekian march and wedding song along with Khazak, Turkomenian, Tadjik and Khirghiz tunes. |
Seeger, Ruth Crawford (1901-1953)
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Written in 1924, the same year as her first Preludes for piano, Kaleidoscopic Changes was premiered by the young composer shortly before her graduation from the American Conservatory in Chicago. In her recent critically acclaimed biography on Seeger, Judith Tick writes: "The harmonic language of her Kaleidoscopic Changes had its share of influences--Chopin, perhaps even Gershwin--and its moments of originality in its striking dissonance, harmonic boldness, and unpredictable shifts in mood and figure." Even her teacher, Adolf Weidig, was a little bewildered by the newness of the idiom in this piece by one who would become his most reknowned student.
Kaleidoscopic Changes is edited by pianist Rosemary Platt, who also edited Seeger's nine Preludes for piano, and made the first complete recording of these pieces.
Shatin,
Judith Website Widdershins for piano "'Widdershins is an almost obsolete word (now encountered most often in texts dealing with sorcery) that means 'counterclockwise.' It describes neatly some of the moods and structures in Judith Shatin's neatly contrived and richly textured atonal work, which drew a dazzling performance... and prolonged applause from the audience." (Washington Post) |
Composed in 1983, this three-movement piece has an harmonic background of three seventh chords which use all twelve notes of the chromatic scale. The first movement, Energetic, is a distorted scherzo; the second movement, Tranquil, is more lush; the third movement, Savage, whirls to the close.
Van
Appledorn, Mary Jeanne (1927-2014)
formerly of Lubbock, Texas
Contrasts for
piano Composed in 1946, this is an example of the composer's early style when she was a student at Eastman. It is in three movements, homages to Bartok, Bloch and William Schumann, and is part of a three-work retrospective, joyous and effervescent. It is inscribed to Howard Ingley. Contasts was recorded by Kristian Rasmussen for CRS Master Recordings in 1966. |
A Liszt Fantasie for Piano "...a piece with echoes of Lisztian rhetoric in an unabashedly contemporary context. This is intelligent, evocative music." (Fanfare) "...a bravura, high-flying pastiche
of long-breathed melody, tremolos, rolling basses, a gypsy
theme, trills, celestial arpeggiating...the works. It is
a terrific trip!" (IAWM Journal) |
A Liszt Fantasie for piano was written in 1984 and dedicated to William F. Westney. The piece makes musical references to themes from fifteen compositions by Franz Liszt. A list of the themes and the sources appears at the end of the score.
Van
de Vate, Nancy Website Sonata for
piano Nancy Van de Vate's first extended work for solo piano, was composed in Honolulu in 1978. |
The second movement is a simple three-part form with an abbreviated return of the opening material. Its middle section is a long melody in Brahmsian sixths and thirds, accompanied in the left hand by an unremitting two-note ostinato. The third movement, also in three-part form, opens with a perpetuum mobile in the piano's lowest register. It gradually moves to the upper end of the keyboard, then drops down again. A lyric middle section interrupts the perpetuum mobile, which finally returns and concludes the Sonata.
Vercoe,
Elizabeth Website Fantasy
for piano "A very free contemporary composition
exploiting all the color and resources of a modern piano.
An imaginative,
intense fantasy." (Clavier)
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Three
Studies for piano "It is a pleasure to meet these
three arresting pieces."
(The Piano Quarterly)
The Three Studies were written for the composer's most talented piano students in the early 1970's, and received a professional premiere at Boston University in 1975, the year they were published. Teachers have sometimes used these imaginative pieces in piano classes with different students playing the three different movements. The titles are: Mirrors, Daydream, and Fugue. |
Piano Four-Hands
Harriet Bolz (1909-1995)Capitol Pageant for Piano Duet A favorite one-movement piece for two-piano teams. |
Lomon, Ruth (1930-2017)
formerly of Cambridge, Massachusetts Soundings for piano
duet
6'50" $ 8.00 #040085 AP-202 Recording: Capriccio, Vol.
2
"
This piece is about sound and Lomon gets some lovely & unusual
ones." (The American Music Teacher) |
Polin, Claire (1926-1995)Phantasmagoria for piano
four hands Phantasmagoria calls for the placement of three or four small metal bells on the central strings of the piano to produce a harpsichord-like twang. The composer indicates that this special effect may be omitted, but that a certain quality of mystery in the piece will be lost thereby. |
Organ
Bolz, Harriet (1909-1995)
Episode for Organ-Autumn Joy This piece is an arrangement of the first movement of the Sonata for Cello and Piano which was written by Harriet Bolz for her cellist son when he was in high school. She later arranged the first movement of the Sonata for organ to be played at his wedding, and it is in this version that the piece has been frequently performed. |
Sonic Essay and Fugue for Organ Contemplative and fresh, the piece
is marked Andante con moto. |
Lomon,
Ruth (1930-2017) Seven Portals of Vision for organ "captures the spirit of the poems... audible imagery" (MLA Notes) Composed for the four-manual organ in Hill Auditorium on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Seven Portals of Vision is dedicated to Joanne Vollendorf who premiered the work there in 1983. |
Harpsichord
Van
Appledorn, Mary Jeanne (1927-2014) Parquet Musique pour Clavecin
(harpsichord) "a composer with a wide
range of styles and forms to her credit." (The Music
Connoisseur) |
(See Arsis Press Composers)
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