12-Tone B-A-C-H (2001) - 5'
for
Solo Piano or Harpsichord
MIDI Recording
Programme Note
_I have long had an interest in the idea of using all twelve notes of the
chromatic scale, but not in such a systematic way as Schoenberg and the
other serialists did. I am strongly against the use of serial technique
to dictate the entire structure of a piece of music. However, with this
piece for piano written in 2001 I contradicted myself in a way, because
a twelve note row forms the basis of this piece. I have used
twelve-note rows in some of my other pieces but never systematically. I
often create them in such a way that they sound tonal or modal, so only
the keenest of listeners would notice they are twelve-note rows.
With this piece I kind of went against my principles by basing the whole piece on a twelve note row followed by the famous BACH motif which is taken from the German musical alphabet where B=Bb, and H=B natural. This Twelve-Tone B-A-C-H makes up the repeating bass line of this Chaconne for solo piano and therefore it is the basis of the piece’s structure, however that is where the systematic nature of the composition ends, most of the rest of the material in the piece was created intuitively without the use of any system.
The Twelve-Note B-A-C-H bass line has a very ominous quality and as a result this is one of my darkest pieces, it is quite densely chromatic and dissonant at times, with occasional passages of pure consonances. There is quite a strong jazz influence in some passages also and one or two minimalistic passages. This combination makes it a kind of Baroque Jazz Serialist Minimalist piano piece!
With this piece I kind of went against my principles by basing the whole piece on a twelve note row followed by the famous BACH motif which is taken from the German musical alphabet where B=Bb, and H=B natural. This Twelve-Tone B-A-C-H makes up the repeating bass line of this Chaconne for solo piano and therefore it is the basis of the piece’s structure, however that is where the systematic nature of the composition ends, most of the rest of the material in the piece was created intuitively without the use of any system.
The Twelve-Note B-A-C-H bass line has a very ominous quality and as a result this is one of my darkest pieces, it is quite densely chromatic and dissonant at times, with occasional passages of pure consonances. There is quite a strong jazz influence in some passages also and one or two minimalistic passages. This combination makes it a kind of Baroque Jazz Serialist Minimalist piano piece!
