Piano Piece (1977)

This is one of my student pieces written while studying music at London University, Royal Holloway College. I specialised in composition and my tutor was Brian Dennis. There's a number of influences here, for instance Ravel's piano music, Joni Mitchell (from the time of 'Hejira' and 'Hissing of Summer Lawns'), Scriabin, Steve Reich, Chopin...etc. but I think the overall sound world is still fairly original.

As the title suggests it was written as a solo piano piece, but I added an orchestral part in 2002 and I think it gains a lot from this - there's more colour, the linear, melodic flow becomes clearer and the relatively complex harmony seems less opaque.

Above all nowadays I'm struck by the energy and dynamism of some of the passages, and the freshness in hearing a piece that moves between pulse rhythms and freer flexible tempi. It would be great to get the opportunity to write a concerto one day...

[click on the the image below to open the score for this extract in a new window]

© Jonathan Parry 2006