THREE MOVEMENTS FOR PIANO
for solo piano
Work Details
Solo piano
- Murmuration
- Night Music
- Everest
2015
ca. 20 minutes
Watch
I. Murmuration – Lisa Moore, piano – Kettle Corn New Music – May, 2015
II. Night Music – Lisa Moore, piano – Kettle Corn New Music – May, 2015
III. Everest – Lisa Moore, piano – Kettle Corn New Music – May, 2015
Program Note
Three Movements for Piano is a virtuosic three-movement sonata connected by rising and falling figures and images drawn from the natural world. The movements were composed at different points in my life, and their order of composition is the reverse of the order in which they appear here. They may be performed together in the published order, reordered at the performer’s discretion, or presented individually as standalone works.
I. Murmuration
Murmuration is inspired by the phenomenon of starlings flying together in large, shifting flocks. I first witnessed a murmuration in person while driving across the country from coast to coast. I was in Nebraska, and the music began to appear in my head.
The movement attempts to capture the beauty of those undulating flight patterns: rising and falling figures that move with the grace, fluidity, and collective motion of a single organism.
I composed this movement in 2015 for pianist Lisa Moore and Kettle Corn New Music.
II. Night Music
Night Music, composed in 2012 and premiered by pianist David Fung, is bookended by a sense of stillness and quiet, inspired by the Maine woods at night and by the dark, mysterious moods of David Lynch’s film and television work.
The central sections interrupt that stillness with an off-kilter, lilting dance, suggesting something more mischievous and unstable beneath the surface. The movement invites the listener into a moonlit, slightly uncanny forest: peaceful, playful, and not entirely safe.
III. Everest
Everest takes its title from the tallest mountain on Earth. Although the sharp rising figures in the first half of the piece may suggest steep cliffs, the movement is not a depiction of the mountain itself. Instead, Everest serves as a metaphor for a monumental obstacle encountered in life.
Over the course of the movement, the rising figures gradually transform into descending ones, reflecting the experience of moving through difficulty and emerging changed on the other side.
This movement was completed in 2010 for pianist Monika Haar.
—SC