MOMENTA excerpt
MOMENTA for solo piano (spring 2004). Momenta is the plural of momentum. The title is a play on words. The inspiration for this piece is the music of Franz Schubert and his ‘Momens Musicale’, especially #1 of opus 94 (C Major). As a student I played this music. Although a gentle piece meant to played more delicately, I played it like a miniature opera with strong emotion. My teacher, understanding that I was a composer, let me experience the powerful emotions Schubert’s music evoked. It is this appreciation of Schubert’s music which MOMENTA expresses and pays homage to. You can hear the tune embedded in the piece in various guise, especially at the end.
The intention here is to ‘process’ the gestures of the classical era through my own creativity in order to create something new which takes inspiration from the past and yet looks forward — to express what it feels like to be alive in today’s world… Also – one may speak of the ‘vibrations’ which arise from reaching back through time…giving rise to the ‘romantic’ gestures which characterize especially the earlier areas of this music.
A simple formal analyses of MOMENTA:
Introductory gestures (with thematic variation), Fuga (follows cadenza for right hand), an area I call ‘the way it is… after chasing Schubert’… (you can hear the left hand chase the right up to the top of the piano)… an area where the A and B areas are combined into a ‘harmonic lyricism’ which precedes a recapitulation and final expression of the theme.
MOMENTA is dedicated to friend and new music champion Daniel Rieppel.
Listen to Opening Excerpt in side bar
Score Page