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Seven Pieces

For Piano


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Commentary


These Seven Pieces, conceived with a purely educational objective, aim to bring together, as a whole, different degrees of technical difficulty and, at the same time, to form a compact work that allows both the isolated interpretation of each one of the numbers and their global execution. Its aesthetic approach, for the benefit of its original pedagogical destiny, is of great simplicity, with most of the pieces being composed within eminently tonal assumptions.
The first piece, Gloss for two voices on a cantus firmus, is an eminently contrapuntal work, in which the right hand develops a counterpoint for two voices, in a clearly imitative style, while the left hand develops only the cantus firmus to the which alludes to the title of the piece, which is none other than the Cat’s Theme from Peter and the Wolf, by Sergei Prokofiev. Said theme, exposed in the original work by the clarinet, is here transformed beyond recognition by giving each of its notes a very long length, as was customary in the treatment of the cantus firmus in ancient polyphony.
The second piece is a brief Scherzo, markedly rhythmic in character. It is followed by a Cradle song, eminently singable; in it, the melody is located in the center of the piano range, and must be developed alternately by both hands, highlighted by an accompaniment that passes from the low to the high register, and with which it should never be mixed.
The fourth piece is entitled Through the mirror, alluding to the fact that the writing of both hands is absolutely symmetrical throughout the entire movement, with the imaginary mirror in which one hand reflects the other being located on the central D of the keyboard. The fifth piece, entitled The lost steps and subtitled Habanera for Alejo Carpentier, in just remembrance of his splendid novel, recreates a stylized habanera in such a way that it is more suggested than anything else: the melody begins several times, but does not seem to want to be never completed.
The sixth piece is a new Scherzo, not as rhythmic in character as the previous one, based on a thematic design continuously interrupted by notes and chords played in the extreme tessituras of the instrument. Finally, the seventh piece, entitled Modes, also has a subtitle: Homage to Maurice Ravel. It is divided into several related sections, each of which is composed in a different way, following a progression by ascending fifths: thus, the first section is written in Locrian mode, the second in Phrygian, the third in Aeolian, the the fourth in Dorian, the fifth in Mixolydian, the sixth in Ionian, and the seventh and last (with the same thematic idea as the first) in Lydian. Apart from the deliberately impressionistic neo-modal setting, in the sections written in the Aeolian and Mixolydian modes a very brief Ravelian "quotation" takes place: a four-note design that evokes the serene and restful atmosphere of the Pavane for a dead princess.
These Seven Pieces for piano were written in March 1987, and are dedicated to my son Luis. They were premiered by the Russian pianist Eugenia Gabrieluk at the Manuel de Falla Auditorium of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid, in December 1991.

Cover of the CD "Diálogos concertados", in which the Seven Pieces
recording is included (Bassus Ediciones, 2021)

They were recorded in 2011 by pianist Ana Benavides and published on the CD "Diálogos concertados", from Bassus Ediciones label, together with the Twelve studies and the Lindaraja Prelude.
The edition of the Seven Pieces has a cover designed by Paula Villanueva Sanz.

Cover of the edition of the Seven Pieces
(Designed by Paula Villanueva Sanz)



Recording (selection of the CD "Diálogos concertados", by Ana Benavides)


First page of the Gloss for two voices on a Cantus Firmus


I. Gloss for two voices on a Cantus Firmus


First page of the first Scherzo


II. Scherzo


First page of The lost steps (Habanera for Alejo Carpentier)


V. The lost steps (Habanera for Alejo Carpentier)



Related texts


Tomé Pantrigo, Laura
José Luis Turina and his pedagogical music for solo piano. Didactic contribution to his Seven pieces for piano (1987)
End of Studies Project presented at the Superior Conservatory of Music of Castilla y León. Salamanca, September 2020)



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(Score without watermarks available at www.asesores-musicales.com )