Piano sonata (originally improvised)

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Now written out by ear, small changes made, fourth movement still performed in an improvisatory context where the score is not absolutely adhered to.

Perfomance is one take during a short recording session.

Highly programmatic - the general moods can be described as follows:

Opening with Idyll, we find ourselves amongst pastoral scenes of peace and serenity, as the piano surrounds itself in romantic harmonies and gentle rocking accompaniments. All is well and at ease with the world as the harmonies resolve in a dominant to tonic cadence.

The placid dreaminess does not last however; the key falls by a third, from D major to Bb minor, as reality returns in Funerailles, the title being of course allusive. A funeral procession traverses the landscape, with falling melodic passages, Lisztian bass tremolandi and the sound of distant church bells. The soft bass bells are counterpointed with pealing in the treble. The bass tremolandi swell into a section consisting of augmented harmonies (again this is an allusion to the closing section of Liszt's Funerailles), but there is no resolution within the movement, and the harmony is left suspended querulously.

Intermezzo begins with an unexpected resolution into F# major. This marks the key further falling by a third to commence the new movement. A brief interlude ensues, before any illusion of peace is shattered forever.

The final movement is in three sections - Orage opens with a thunderclap of octaves as the storm breaks with a deluge of minor key left hand triplets. Again the key has fallen by a third, but this time a minor third, progressing from F# major into Eb minor. The storm continues, with grumbling passagework, powerful chords and towering arpeggios, broken briefly with a short spooky interlude (a omen of what is to come), pressing forward until a sudden summery interlude marks a rainbow in the sky. Any relief is short-lived as a cadenza-like passage ushers in ghost ships and spectres as we prepare for the denouement: the Marche a l'enfer, in which armies of monstrous beasts, march onward to the ultimate destiny. Hell and the Devil awaits.

Recording with sheet music.

[lelle]

Really impressive that you can improvise this sort of stuff man!

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Thanks, to be fair this is a performance of a written-out improvisation but there isn't much difference between the two renditions other than that I probably played the finale a touch faster here due to having what I was playing set in the mind rather than making it up as I went along.

[symphonic_piano]

How gifted you are.
I would like to write a detailed analysis and review on these set of six works.

I have sent you a private message.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Thank you!

I'm not sure how much the piece stands up to formalistic analysis in a structural sense: there are certainly a fair amount of motifs used which help it cohere, but in some places it is very free and not 'constructed' in the way a more formal composition would be, it being essentially improvised.