Music

Recorded on May 7, 2021 in preparation for Mother's Day (May 9) 2021.

This is a piece that I wrote in high school. On a recent trip to my parents' home, I found a copy of the sheet music (on literal sheets of paper!) and realized I should probably scan it and upload it to the cloud to save it for posterity. It was not my first composition, but it was the first I considered to be a serious attempt. On the sheet music, the copyright year is given as 2005, but I am fairly confident that the actual composition was completed in the fall of 2004.

Recorded on Mar. 6, 2021.

This nocturne was published together with two others in Chopin's opus 9 in 1832.

Recorded Feb. 21, 2021.

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), not to be confused with his father Alessandro (1660-1725), also a well-known composer, is a transitional figure between the baroque and classical eras. He is most famous today for the more than 500 keyboard sonatas he composed and left mostly unpublished during his lifetime. These are relatively short works intended mainly for the harpsichord but frequently played on the piano.

"Auld Lang Syne" in my own arrangement. Happy new year!

"Sounds of crying and screaming came from somewhere in the distance outside, and flames were visible through the cracks of the shed, but inside it was quiet and dark. For a long time Pierre did not sleep, but lay with eyes open in the darkness, listening to the regular snoring of Platón who lay beside him, and he felt that the world that had been shattered was once more stirring in his soul with a new beauty and on new and unshakable foundations."

-- L. Tolstoy, "War and Peace" (Maude translation)

My own arrangement of The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York". Recorded Nov. 26, 2020.

Recorded on Nov. 25, 2020.

"Es wird so viel über Musik gesprochen, und so wenig gesagt. Ich glaube überhaupt, die Worte reichen nicht hin dazu, und fände ich, daß sie hinreichten, so würde ich am Ende gar keine Musik mehr machen." -- F. Mendelssohn, letter to M. A. Souchay, 1842

This is my own arrangement of Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia on My Mind", first released in 1930.

Recorded on Oct. 10, 2020 but posted (for reasons) nine days later.

Recorded on Oct. 11, 2020.

Recorded on Sept. 20, 2020.

This work was published in 1722 and was originally intended for the harpsichord.

Recorded on Aug. 22, 2020.

This is a quasi-improvised arrangement of the song "La Mer", written in 1943 by Charles Trenet (1913-2001). It is perhaps better known in the anglosphere as "Beyond the Sea".

Recorded Aug. 22, 2020.

You might never have heard of François Couperin (1668-1733), but he was extremely famous in his day. In fact, the entire Couperin family was known as a musical dynasty in France in much the same way that the Bach family was known in Germany. François is the most famous of the Couperins and was even appointed a court composer of Louis XIV. He wrote quite a lot of music for the harpsichord, which has since entered the standard repertoire for the piano.

This piece was published in 1717 with the spelling "Les Baricades Mistérieuses". Like all his keyboard works, it was originally written for the harpsichord. In this performance, I have made no attempt to emulate a baroque style. Instead, I use the sustain pedal liberally and change tempo as the mood sways me. The meaning of the title is not clear, though that has not stopped musicologists from making suggestions. The piece consists of overlapping arpeggios, a style that Couperin himself referred to a "style luthé", i.e., a style reminiscent of stringed instruments like the lute. The modern term is "style brisé", i.e., broken style. The structure is that of a rondo, which is a piece in which a refrain is continually returned to. You may notice that the harmonic progression of this refrain is similar to that of the famous Canon in D major of Johann Pachelbel, a contemporary of Couperin.

Fun fact for musicians: In the original 1717 publication, the right hand is written with alto instead of treble clef.

Recorded on Jun. 13, 2020 in preparation for Independence Day, July 4, 2020.

This is a quasi-improvised arrangement of the American folk song "Shenandoah".

Recorded on Jun. 13, 2020 in preparation for my father's 75th birthday. A lively mazurka for a Polish father.

Recorded on Jun. 7, 2020 in preparation for Father's Day, Jun. 21, 2020.

My father asked for an original piece. That was a bit annoying, since I haven't been writing much music lately. I chose to adapt a song I'd written about ten years ago. The result is sufficiently different from the song that I chose to call this new creation nothing more than "Fantasia on a theme from my younger days".

For my mother, who taught me that the hills are alive! Happy Mother's Day!

This is a quasi-improvised arrangement of "The Sound of Music" by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. I recorded it for Mother's Day 2020 from my home in Los Altos Hills.