A short suite of improvisations

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Designed as episodes within a larger single piece and recorded as such.

In five parts

Procession
Eulogy
Ricordanza
Funerailles
Denouement

A funeral procession trudges slowly through the rain and gloom, making its way to the church. The priest gives an impassioned eulogy as the rain becomes a storm. As the storm recedes and a rainbow breaks, thoughts turn to fond summer remembrance. The illusion cannot be maintained, and the procession wend their way to the final resting place.

[ted]

Splendid middle sections, Andrew, powerfully nostalgic, and your chordal vocabulary has made strides over the last few years. Although relatively straightforward taken in isolation the way you use and sequence harmonies in combination has shot ahead in expressive implication. Of course, there are those among us who would maintain that the central part is the reality and the bookends the illusion; pay your money and take your choice. Really sounds a treat through my big hi-fi though.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Thanks, whilst I think this one has been deliberately less harmonically ambivalent than some of the other recent ones, it is by choice. There is a slight but deliberate allusion to the funeral march in Beethoven op 26 and a more accidental, spur of the moment allusion to Liszt's 9th transcendental etude (ie Ricordanza).

I'm pleased if it is sounding good through hifi because the recording conditions are obviously far from optimal, being in a small room: all I've really done is to remove as much ambient noise as I could.

[quantum]

Vividly evocative, with an incredible sense musical of narrative.  I love the thematic cohesion of the entire piece.  Melodies seem to organically grow and morph out from the initial processional march, yet we are constantly reminded of the footsteps from which all these story line chapters emerge. 

The recording also sounds great on my open-back headphones.  Big full sound. 

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Thanks, quantum. I'm genuinely pleased with this one, and not least because I similarly feel it is structurally and motivically cohesive. It is always interesting to try and balance a sense of improvisatory freedom with the background issue of maintaining elements of structural order..