Fantasy on Dies Irae

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Using (mainly) the first four notes as a motif. The middle section, which is rhapsodic and less gloomy, is more free, although it also uses a major key harmonisation of those four notes.

[ted]

Perhaps my listening has become less eclectic recently but surely you must be just about the only player in the world by now capable, certainly spontaneously anyway, of expressing the deeper, underlying spirit of nineteenth century romanticism. I never tire of hearing the intense longing, the search for the hidden gate, the unfound door, the magic casement, which are inherent in the "Wright effect" of this middle section. That is not to ignore the power of the duality framed by the outside sections. I have dualities in many of my improvisations, there seems to be something aesthetically and fundamentally pleasing about them, but mine seem to occur by accident rather than design.   

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I'm sure there are people capable of spontaneously expressing 19th century romantic sentiments in original form but it's a matter that improvisation is assigned such low priority within classical music that you never get to hear of them. My ideas evolve over time and sometimes I'm borrowing, not so much harmonic progressions, but methods of development from previous improvisations (in this case, for example the concept of reharmonising the Dies Irae motif in the major.)

There's an attempt here to address both structure and emotional affect; whilst the improvisation itself is pretty free there remains points of architectural connection.

Glad you liked it.