(Work-in-progress)
Instrumentation: singing/speaking pianist, 4-channel electronics, and metallic resonator
Duration: 49 minutes
Premiere: TBD
Album Amicorum
(Work-in-progress)
Instrumentation: Solo Piano
Duration: TBD
Program Note:
Album Amicorum takes its name from a practice in the 1700s of keeping a friendship book or an “album of friends” – a book in which one collected the autographs of notable figures or kept mementos and messages from one’s close friends of childhood or university study. There is a long musical tradition of memorializing friendship in music, including well-known works such as the Elgar’s Enigma Variations and the Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. This work is inspired by several of my friends, with each receiving a movement bearing their initials and reflecting their personalities or interests.
Click the links to listen to recordings of the completed movements below:
I. Hymn Fragments – A. G.
II. Groove Canons – R. R.
III. Maintenance Fughetta with Road Race – M. T.
IV. Interlude – W. B.
V. Games – S. F.
VI. Questions – D. S.
VII. Evidence – T. S.
VIII. Travelogue – T. C.
IX. Postlude
Premiere: TBD
The Many Shapes of Light
Instrumentation: Solo Violin, Electronics
Duration: ca. 8:00
Program Note:
The Many Shapes of Light was inspired by the renovation of the Riverfront Park Pavilion in Spokane Washington. This structure (something like the metal ribbing of a large circus tent) was fitted with 479 LED light blades in September of 2019 and is now used as a public space for gatherings, concerts, and mesmerizing light shows.
Continue reading “The Many Shapes of Light”Three Pentiments
Instrumentation: Solo Piano
Duration: ca. 8:15
Program Note:
Three Pentiments opens with a joyful, rhythmic (double) fugue which allows the pianist to show off some of the instrument’s dazzling contrapuntal possibilities. The first subject is light and highly rhythmic, featuring repeated notes and ending with a running figure. The second subject, which acts as a counter-subject to the first motive, is slightly more modest but it reappears in several different guises— including the second fugal exposition of the movement and the stretti that bring the movement to its climax.
Monolith is an atmospheric respite from the activity of the first movement, focusing on the gestures and theatricality of the piano, and exploring the expressive domains of touch, dynamics, tessitura, and rhythmic flexibility.
The work’s finishing Toccata is a celebration of the piano as a percussion instrument. The performer is asked to negotiate difficult repeated-note and octave figures, attacking the keyboard in a blur of activity.
Continue reading “Three Pentiments”Midnight Dances
Instrumentation: Piano Solo
Duration: ca. 6:00
Program Note:
Midnight Dances is inspired by a phrase from one of the best-loved classics of children’s literature— The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. In composing this work, I wanted to write a piece that incorporated the captivating rhythmic drive that I so admire in my favorite contemporary works for piano. The piece opens with a brief atmospheric introduction before launching into the first dance section. After a flourish, this dance winds down and gives way to a more effusive, stately second theme. The first dance recommences, but it melts into an ostinato figure and a quasi- canon that reprises the second theme. After a final climax, the first dance gradually winds down, leading back into the atmospheric tones that opened the work.
Awards: Received an honorable mention in the international composition competition The Contemporary Piano 2017.
Comments from the adjudicators:
“A piece full of energy and very interesting harmonic and rhythmic changes throughout. Especially in terms of rhythm, there are some challenging passages that will create a very powerful and exciting feeling [for] the listener if the interpretation is accurate. Clear and ‘pianistic’ writing.”
View the full comments here under the identifier 4488.
Invention in D
Instrumentation: Piano Solo
Duration: ca. 2:00
Program Note:
This short polyphonic study provided an enjoyable opportunity to explore contrapuntal techniques. Over the course of the work, the main motive appears frequently in canon or inversion, and the underlying polyphonic texture aims to balance lyricism with rhythmic interest. My compositional goal was to create engaging, independent lines while still maintaining a sense of form and structure. While the piece is written in a style with a long classical tradition, a more modern pianistic idiom breaks through in the work’s dramatic moments.
Premiere: November 13, 2016; Spokane, WA.
Gossamer Inventions
Instrumentation: Piano Solo
Duration: ca. 9:30
Movements:
I. Moderato cantabile
II. Con moto
III. Allegro
IV. Moderato scherzando e tranquillo
V. Quasi senza misura
VI. Misterioso
Program Note:
The theme for these inventions is a four-note motive which is treated in its original form (marked as “prime”), in inversion, in retrograde, and in retrograde-inversion. All six combinations of these four forms are treated in two-part counterpoint. In the course of working with these confined requirements, I was surprised to see how the material developed in a wide variety of moods and styles, seemingly of its own volition. The general atmosphere of the work is inspired by Lois Lowry’s novel, Gossamer.
Premiere: November 13, 2016; Spokane, WA.
Peter A. Underhill 