Toccata in the form of a train

[ronde_des_sylphes]

...or at least the musical depiction of a (devilish) train.

The devilish aspect is symbolised by the multitude of tritones; little hints of the Dies Irae also.

Alkan allusion in the title, of course.

This did begin from an improvisation but is one of the few pieces I'm posting just now where I can say that I sat down and worked out specific compositional aspects, rather than just tinkering around the edges of an improvisation to add coherence,

Recorded as part of a very long full-day session on a nice grand piano.

[carmelopaolucci]

Wow, That's a really demanding piece !!!
Frankly, I don't fully understand it; it seems really mechanical, but I think this is just my ignorance: I don't know many of Alkan's pieces, and the ones I find online generally seem to be of very ephemeral virtuosity. Anyway, thank you, this could be a good opportunity to delve deeper into this composer.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I suppose this is quite an unconventional piece, especially for someone who plays romantic era music like myself, in that the predominant element in this is the underlying rhythm (the rhythm of the train).

Maybe it also resembles some Prokofiev? I'm not sure. In any case, it began life as an experimental improvisation, and I don't think it's ended up being "normal" either!

Thanks for listening.

[cbcpiano]

Good music, keep writing! I particularly enjoyed the Dies Irae quote at 1:10

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Thanks!

Yes, I wanted to make a point of sneaking the Dies Irae in somewhere.

[ted]

I always liked this one, wondered when you would post it again and wished it would go on much longer. The train image occurs throughout the arts; "State Street Special", "Honkytonk Train Blues" and Ives's "Celestial Railroad" in piano music. The Ives piece, in particular, is a glorious example of direct impressionism, especially the opening. Then we have Turner's groundbreaking "Rain, Steam and Speed" in painting. Trains, sinister and otherwise occur in so much literature, in J.B. Priestley and in several stories by Christie.

I have to admit a certain nostalgia about steam locomotives and the noises, smells and visual effects they produced because I grew up with them. Diesels and Shinkansen trains have vacuous romantic implication for me. I avoid attaching permanent meanings to specific formations, harmonic, haptic, rhythmic or otherwise, but that's just my personal approach to expressive freedom; a tritone carries no particular implication for me.

I wouldn't be surprised if urgent motoric ostinatos break out in my next recorded improvisation though ! Ha ha !

[ronde_des_sylphes]

The original one was not metrically regular enough for what I wanted in terms of depicted a train, so what I did was wrote bits of it out and then used them as motifs to write an "in the style of" rearrangement.

It's difficult enough I'm not sure I want it to be too much longer!

It's definitely a change from my more usual fare and doing it in the first place was a good experiment imo: opens up new avenues of thinking about what I want in my music.

Night trains have a certain something about them.