Prelude Impressions

for solo piano
(2012)

The score of Prelude Impressions can be purchased from Sheet Music Plus.
A performance by Chaoi Chou (周兆儀) can be heard at the following YouTube links:
I - Drifting Through Change
II - Building Clouds
III - Moonless Heath

Prelude Impressions

These pieces were composed to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Claude Debussy’s birth. They are therefore based on certain compositional techniques and aesthetic ideas that Debussy developed, even though they don’t sound like Debussy’s music.

I - Drifting Through Change
The beginning ideas for this piece are two separate rhythmic patterns. These patterns are of different lengths and create different meters, yet they appear together in short episodes throughout the composition. Their interaction creates the changing rhythmic relationships that inspired the title “Drifting Through Change”. Contrasting music appearing between these episodes create still more change. To me, it sounds as if one is floating through empty space, but occasionally drifting past various objects or through different situations.

II - Building Clouds
The opening of this piece begins with an idea that, in my mind, takes the opening gesture of Debussy’s “Nuages” and slowly turns it inside out. However, this piece is not about slowly drifting soft, lush or noble clouds. They may be wispy at first, but they soon grow turbulent and result in music that would most likely too dramatic for Debussy’s tastes.

III - Moonless Heath
In terms of harmonic color and general composition technique, this piece probably has more obvious links to Debussy than the other two. It begins with a simple melody, not unlike the opening melody of Debussy’s prelude “Bruyére”, after which an ostinato gently moves the music forward. It has the effect of walking through a quiet dark night outdoors where one can’t be sure what one might be passing by. Structurally, this piece is a melodic palindrome. Starting in measure 33, the center of the composition, the primary melodic line is played in retrograde inversion back through to the end at measure 66. The melody heard at the very end is, of course, the retrograde inversion of the one that began the composition. At the end, however, its relationship to Debussy’s music can be a little more clearly understood.

(performance duration ca. 10-11 minutes)