Using Right-Hand Finger-Weight Only

Composer's Note:

Doubling as the first several minutes of the two-piano work Barely; Wholly, Op. 662, Using Right-Hand Finger-Weight Only, when presented singly, functions as an etude in delicate, sotto voce playing—an investigation of the miniscule, vulnerable possibilities of keyboard playing.

In its two-piano context, this microscopic texture opens from ‘barely’ existing to ‘wholly’ embracing the full texture of both keyboards. As I write in the program note to the larger, two-piano work, ‘I aspire to creating a kind of “at risk” quality through this music, entering a provisional pianistic sound-space that posits but doesn’t conclude, guesses but doesn’t know, encounters/conquers trouble yet remains tender, fragile’.

This tender, fragile music is dedicated to Edith Auner, whose playing I imagined when fashioning both the solo and two-piano manifestations that emerged from the opening few phrases.