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Aaron Alon's music has been performed around the world by such acclaimed musicians as Leone Buyse, Ian Davidson, Andrea Ceccomori, Catherine Branch, Daniel Neer, Michael Fennelly, Mark Whatley, and new music groups Sounds New and the Vientos Trio. His works have been included on three labels and awarded numer…
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Tre esercizi
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Instrumentation: harpsichord
Composed: 1986
Duration: ca. 9 min.
Pages: 19 pp.
Website: library.newmusicusa.org/allenbrings
Composed: 1986
Duration: ca. 9 min.
Pages: 19 pp.
Website: library.newmusicusa.org/allenbrings
Tre esercizi, Mvt. 1
Tre esercizi, Mvt. 2
Tre esercizi, Mvt. 3
Tre esercizi, Mvt. 1
Tre esercizi, Mvt. 2
Tre esercizi, Mvt. 3
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The title for Tre esercizi was taken from the name that Domenico Scarlatti gave to his first published collection of sonatas for gravicembalo. Inspired by these but no less by the works of Purcell, the French clavecinistes, and, of course, the keyboard works of Bach and Handel, Tre esercizi exploits the harpsichord's eminent ability to sharply differentiate contrapuntal lines, be resonant and somber at one moment, cold and scintillating at another, to be a vehicle for virtuosity at all times. The first and third esercizi resemble in their textures and imitative beginnings the two-part inventions of Bach although the rhythm and tempo of the first are also reminiscent of the Baroque allemande. Each is based on two contrasting motives and is basically ternary in form. Both are expanded by methods having their roots in the eighteenth century though the prevailing chromaticism, which is almost total, and the ways in which pitches are combined harmonically betray an undeniable twentieth century bias. The slow, second piece is a set of variations over--and later also under--a ground bass, a device suggested by so many of Henry Purcell's successful essays in that genre and one which I had not used since my Passacaglia, Interlude and Fugue for organ (or piano, four-hands) of 1956.
If the music of Tre esercizi and these remarks express both an awareness of and an admiration for the accomplishments of certain of my predecessors, these should not be interpreted as indicating an interest in the antique for its own sake. The harpsichord which I imagined while composing Tre esercizi was not, whatever the origins of any particular instrument on which it might be played, an ancient instrument but rather an instrument newly invented, fully capable of enunciating the musical language of my own time. The compositional techniques, too, seemed to me to be among those limited by neither time nor place.
If the music of Tre esercizi and these remarks express both an awareness of and an admiration for the accomplishments of certain of my predecessors, these should not be interpreted as indicating an interest in the antique for its own sake. The harpsichord which I imagined while composing Tre esercizi was not, whatever the origins of any particular instrument on which it might be played, an ancient instrument but rather an instrument newly invented, fully capable of enunciating the musical language of my own time. The compositional techniques, too, seemed to me to be among those limited by neither time nor place.
| Website: | http://amc.net/allenbrings |
| Email: | miramusic@aol.com |
