| Description |
Etude Retrospectif
This piece has a strange start. In the beginning, it was a piano/keyboard sequence, consisting of a number of fast 16th notes, with a simple rising scale underneath. It stayed in my head in different forms, but it would not turn into a piece.
A couple of years later, I went back to it, and suddenly there was a structure. All the fast notes were, in fact, a sub-voice in a choral-like episode! Now it was easy to complete the piece, starting out with the sequence, and gradually introducing parts of the choral as the 16th note theme is progressing. A disturbing element enters the scene, and afterwards the choral is played through with the fast notes accompanying in a middle voice. The piece ends with a variation of the initial sequence, that, so to say, get's the last word.
During the whole piece, tempo is slowly but surely accelerated throughout the piece. Tonally, it is very classical in terms of harmony, but there are a number of harmonic shifts that are all but classical. It could be used as a "move your fingers (and feet..)" study before working with something like "Toccata" by Charles Widor. |