Pianagerie

Instrumentation: Piano

World Premiere: Chuck Foster (Piano); March 7, 2017; Master Classroom, Northwestern University

Recording: Movements 1-4, 6: Liza Sobel (Piano); Movement 5: Reading by Vicky Chow (Piano)

Duration: 12.5 minutes

Program Notes:

Pianagerie: Seven Vignettes for Solo Piano

I. Bell Chorale

II. Bass Drum Aria

III. Muted Glissando Toccata

IV. Tambourine March

V. Autoharp

VI. Didgeridoo

VII. Cimbalom

I composed Pianagerie for Daniel Anastasio’s DMA piano recital at State University of New York at Stonybrook. As the listener will soon understand, Pianagerie is an amalgam of the words “piano” and “menagerie.” Pianagerie features seven vignettes that each explore different sound qualities the piano possesses. Often the piano sounds more like other instruments rather than a traditional piano. The other instruments the piano emulates is indicated through the individual movement’s titles. The first movement, “Bell Chorale,” begins with a chorale in the uppermost register of the piano while the pianist simultaneously hits the piano’s beams. The chorale reoccurs throughout the entire work, both in pitch and rhythm. In contrast, the second movement, “Bass Drum Aria,” explores the murky lowest registers of the piano.

The third movement, “Muted Glissando Toccata,” features the three main melodic notes of the chorale. In this movement, the pianist places his or her hands inside the piano, gliding up and down the same strings to produce different harmonics. The fourth movement, “Tambourine March,” imitates a rhythmic tambourine, with the pianist hitting the beams with his or her hands and fingertips, as well as hitting the strings inside the piano in a rhythmic dance. In the fifth movement, "Autoharp," the pianist strums the inside strings of the piano with one hand while plucking the melody from the first movement with the other hand. The sixth movement, “Didgeridoo,” sounds like the didgeridoo, as the pianist scrapes a note with their fingernail, while gliding up and down towards the hammers to create an overtone series similar to a didgeridoo. The final movement, “Cimbalom,” depicts the instrument with the pianist muting the middle register of the piano with a cloth. The main chorale returns again in its clearest form since the opening movement.