SCARLATTI CADENCES AND BRAINSTORM
"The nature of Sebastian Currier’s piano music - ebullient, choreographic and wonderfully inventive - announces itself from the first measures of the 1988 Piano Sonata that opens this beguiling disc. The writing is densely packed into the keyboard, but crisp melodic themes and rhythmic interplay register clearly through the busy textures. And the more you listen, the more engrossing the effect becomes. In a series of splendid performances, pianist Laura Melton brings out all the rambunctious finesse of the five-movement sonata and the thoughtful, intricately cross-referenced "Departures and Arrivals." Currier deftly walks a line between dry neo-Classicism and a more explosively messy emotional palette, and Melton traces it well. The disc concludes in a burst of witty high spirits, with "Scarlatti Cadences" - pressing the old master's distinctive formulas into service in new ways - and the hyperactive "Brainstorm." -San Francisco Chronicle |
Program Note
Although brought together as a set of complimentary short piano pieces, Scarlatti Cadences and Brainstorm each have an independent genesis. Scarlatti Cadences was written for pianist Emma Tahmizian. The outer sections take "Scarlatti-like" cadential formulas and expand upon them, creating delicate, sonorous and ephemeral textures, while the middle section emulates the percussive drive of many a Scarlatti sonata. Brainstorm, written for pianist John Kamitsuka, was written while I was in residence at the American Academy in Rome and dedicated to the then US ambassador to Italy, Ambassador Bartholomew. The piece constantly interweaves tonally ambiguous chromaticism with simple diatonic progressions in a satirical and sometimes raucous manner. It is in this combining of diverse, even opposing harmonic materials that the two piece, Scarlatti Cadences and Brainstorm, come together and share a common thread. As a set, the work was premiered at the 2005 Van Cliburn Competition. |
Scoring
piano
This work is published by Carl Fischer
piano
This work is published by Carl Fischer