CELEBRATION for solo piano

Composer:

Eleanor Cory

Year Authored:

2008

Duration (min):

Movements-Titles:

I. Balance

Movements-Titles:

II. Innocence

Movements-Titles:

III. Reverie

Movements-Titles:

IV. Standards

Publisher:

APNM

Publisher URL:

APNM

Ensemble Type

solo keyboard

Instruments

piano

Celebration is in four movements which can be roughly described as animated, intense, abstract, and jazzy. Balance starts simply with short rocking gestures. These build up to a bass vamp overlaid with a right hand improvisation, and finally culminate in large chords and racing scales. The end the piece slows to reminders of the simple rocking of the opening. The Innocence of the second movement is created by two hands moving naively in dyads to form tentative chords. A fall from innocence plunges the music into grinding motion over an agitated low bass line. A progression from the opening chords attempts to reclaim the innocence. The struggle continues, before finally opening out into innocent dyads again. The music in Reverie, is ethereal. Chords surround snatches of melodic material in the middle range which turn into closely voiced chords. The beginning is then repeated. Standards, as its title suggests, is based on quotes from jazz standards, specifically Misty, How About You, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Laura, and You Can’t Take That Away From Me. Some are clear, others more hidden. The overall texture of the piece is a combination of traditional pianistic virtuosity and moody jazz. --Eleanor Cory

Comments:

“She really gave speech to one of her enthusiasms, the relationship between contemporary music and jazz. The interest in this relationship is present in almost all her works, in one way or another, but here it was at its most overt and, for me, most fascinating.” – Joseph Pehrson, The New Music Connoisseur