I composed the Piano Concerto in two stages: the first three movements during the years 1985-86, the next two in 1987, the final autograph of the last movement was ready by January, 1988. The concerto is dedicated to the American conductor Mario di Bonaventura. .

The markings of the movements are the following: .

1. Vivace molto ritmico e preciso .
2. Lento e deserto .
3. Vivace cantabile .
4. Allegro risoluto .
5. Presto luminoso.

The first performance of the three-movement Concerto was on October 23rd, 1986 in Graz. Mario di Bonaventura conducted while his brother, Anthony di Bonaventura, was the soloist. Two days later the performance was repeated in the Vienna Konzerthaus. After hearing the work twice, I came to the conclusion that the third movement is not an adequate finale. my feeling of form demanded continuation, a supplement. That led to the composing of the next two movements. The premiere of the whole cycle took place on February 29th, 1988, in the Vienna Konzerthaus with the same conductor and the same pianist. .

The orchestra consisted of the following: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, tenor trombone, percussion and strings. The flautist also plays the piccoIo, the clarinetist, the alto ocarina. The percussion is made up of diverse instruments, which one musician-virtuoso can play. It is more practical, however, if two or three musicians share the instruments. Besides traditional instruments the percussion part calls also for two simple wind instruments: the swanee whistle and the harmonica. The string instrument parts (two violins, viola, cello and doubles bass) can be performed soloistic since they do not contain divisi. For balance, however, the ensemble playing is recommended, for example 6-8 first violins, 6-8 second, 4-6 violas, 4-6 cellos, 3-4 double basses. .

In the Piano Concerto I realized new concepts of harmony and rhythm. .

The first movement is entirely written in bimetry: simultaneously 12/8 and 4/4 (8/8). This relates to the known triplet on a doule relation and in itself is nothing new. Because, however, I articulate 12 triola and 8 duola pulses, an entangled, up till now unheard kind of polymetry is created. The rhythm is additionally complicated because of asymmetric groupings inside two speed layers, which means accents are asymmetrically distributed. These groups, as in the talea technique, have a fixed, continuously repeating rhythmic structures of varying lengths in speed layers of 12/8 and 4/4. This means that the repeating pattern in the 12/8 level and the pattern in the 4/4 level do not coincide and continuously give a kaleidoscope of renewing combinations. .

In our perception we quickly resign from following particular rhythmical successions and that what is going on in time appears for us as something static, resting. This music, if it is played properly, in the right tempo and with the right accents inside particular layers, after a certain time rises, as it were, as a plane after taking off: the rhythmic action, too complex to be able to follow in detail, begins flying. This diffusion of individual structures into a different global structure is one of my basic compositional concepts: from the end of the fifties, from the orchestral works Apparitions and Atmospheres I continuously have been looking for new ways of resolving this basic question. The harmony of the first movement is based on mixtures, hence on the parallel leading of voices. This technique is used here in a rather simple form. later in the fourth movement it will be considerably developed. .

The second movement (the only slow one amongst five movements) also has a talea type of structure, it is however much simpler rhythmically, because it contains only one speed layer. The melody is consisted in the development of a rigorous interval mode in which two minor seconds and one major second alternate therefore nine notes inside an octave. This mode is transposed into different degrees and it also determines the harmony of the movement. however, in closing episode in the piano part there is a combination of diatonics (white keys) and pentatonics (black keys) led in brilliant, sparkling quasimixtures, while the orchestra continues to play in the nine tone mode. .

In this movement I used isolated sounds and extreme registers (piccolo in a very low register, bassoon in a very high register, canons played by the swanee whistle, the alto ocarina and brass with a harmon-mute' damper, cutting sound combinations of the piccolo, clarinet and oboe in an extremely high register, also alternating of a whistle-siren and xylophone). The third movement also has one speed layer and because of this it appears as simpler than the first, but actually the rhythm is very complicated in a different way here. Above the uninterrupted, fast and regular basic pulse, thanks to the asymmetric distribution of accents, different types of hemiolas and inherent melodical patterns appear (the term was coined by Gerhard Kubik in relation to central African music). If this movement is played with the adequate speed and with very clear accentuation, illusory rhythmic-melodical figures appear. These figures are not played directly. they do not appear in the score, but exist only in our perception as a result of co-operation of different voices. .

Already earlier I had experimented with illusory rhythmics, namely in Poeme symphonique for 100 metronomes (1962), in Continuum for harpsichord (1968), in Monument for two pianos (1976), and especially in the first and sixth piano etude Desordre and Automne a Varsovie (1985). .

The third movement of the Piano Concerto is up to now the clearest example of illusory rhythmics and illusory melody. In intervallic and chordal structure this movement is based on alternation, and also inter-relation of various modal and quasi-equidistant harmony spaces. The tempered twelve-part division of the octave allows for diatonical and other modal interval successions, which are not equidistant, but are based on the alternation of major and minor seconds in different groups. The tempered system also allows for the use of the anhemitonic pentatonic scale (the black keys of the piano). From equidistant scales, therefore interval formations which are based on the division of an octave in equal distances, the twelve-tone tempered system allows only chromatics (only minor seconds) and the six-tone scale (the whole-tone: only major seconds). .

Moreover, the division of the octave into four parts only minor thirds) and three parts (three major thirds) is possible. In several music cultures different equidistant divisions of an octave are accepted, for example, in the Javanese slendro into five parts, in Melanesia into seven parts, popular also in southeastern Asia, and apart from this, in southern Africa. This does not mean an exact equidistance: there is a certain tolerance for the inaccurateness of the interval tuning. .

These exotic for us, Europeans, harmony and melody have attracted me for several years. However I did not want to re-tune the piano (microtone deviations appear in the concerto only in a few places in the horn and trombone parts led in natural tones). After the period of experimenting, I got to pseudo- or quasiequidistant intervals, which is neither whole-tone nor chromatic: in the twelve-tone system, two whole-tone scales are possible, shifted a minor second apart from each other. Therefore, I connect these two scales (or sound resources), and for example, places occur where the melodies and figurations in the piano part are created from both whole tone scales. in one band one six-tone sound resource is utilized, and in the other hand, the complementary. In this way whole-tonality and chromaticism mutually reduce themselves: a type of deformed equidistancism is formed, strangely brilliant and at the same time slanting. illusory harmony, indeed being created inside the tempered twelve-tone system, but in sound quality not belonging to it anymore. .

The appearance of such slantedequidistant harmony fields alternating with modal fields and based on chords built on fifths (mainly in the piano part), complemented with mixtures built on fifths in the orchestra, gives this movement an individual, soft-metallic colour (a metallic sound resulting from harmonics). .

The fourth movement was meant to be the central movement of the Concerto. Its melodc-rhythmic elements (embryos or fragments of motives) in themselves are simple. The movement also begins simply, with a succession of overlapping of these elements in the mixture type structures. Also here a kaleidoscope is created, due to a limited number of these elements - of these pebbles in the kaleidoscope - which continuously return in augmentations and diminutions. .

Step by step, however, so that in the beginning we cannot hear it, a compiled rhythmic organization of the talea type gradually comes into daylight, based on the simultaneity of two mutually shifted to each other speed layers (also triplet and duoles, however, with different asymmetric structures than in the first movement). While longer rests are gradually filled in with motive fragments, we slowly come to the conclusion that we have found ourselves inside a rhythmic-melodical whirl: without change in tempo, only through increasing the density of the musical events, a rotation is created in the stream of successive and compiled, augmented and diminished motive fragments, and increasing the density suggests acceleration. .

Thanks to the periodical structure of the composition, always new but however of the same (all the motivic cells are similar to earlier ones but none of them are exactly repeated. the general structure is therefore self-similar), an impression is created of a gigantic, indissoluble network. Also, rhythmic structures at first hidden gradually begin to emerge, two independent speed layers with their various internal accentuations. .

This great, self-similar whirl in a very indirect way relates to musical associations, which came to my mind while watching the graphic projection of the mathematical sets of Julia and of Mandelbrot made with the help of a computer. I saw these wonderful pictures of fractal creations, made by scientists from Brema, Peitgen and Richter, for the first time in 1984. From that time they have played a great role in my musical concepts. This does not mean, however, that composing the fourth movement I used mathematical methods or iterative calculus. indeed, I did use constructions which, however, are not based on mathematical thinking, but are rather craftman's constructions (in this respect, my attitude towards mathematics is similar to that of the graphic artist Maurits Escher). .I am concerned rather with intuitional, poetic, synesthetic correspondence, not on the scientific, but on the poetic level of thinking. .

The fifth, very short Presto movement is harmonically very simple, but all the more complicated in its rhythmic structure: it is based on the further development of ''inherent patterns of the third movement. The quasi-equidistance system dominates harmonically and melodically in this movement, as in the third, alternating with harmonic fields, which are based on the division of the chromatic whole into diatonics and anhemitonic pentatonics. Polyrhythms and harmonic mixtures reach their greatest density, and at the same time this movement is strikingly light, enlightened with very bright colours: at first it seems chaotic, but after listening to it for a few times it is easy to grasp its content: many autonomous but self-similar figures which crossing themselves. .

I present my artistic credo in the Piano Concerto: I demonstrate my independence from criteria of the traditional avantgarde, as well as the fashionable postmodernism. Musical illusions which I consider to be also so important are not a goal in itself for me, but a foundation for my aesthetical attitude. I prefer musical forms which have a more object-like than processual character. Music as frozen time, as an object in imaginary space evoked by music in our imagination, as a creation which really develops in time, but in imagination it exists simultaneously in all its moments. The spell of time, the enduring its passing by, closing it in a moment of the present is my main intention as a composer. .
(Gyorgy Ligeti)

The pdf file contains the original score (in letter format) followed by the somewhat larger copy with dedication by the composer and fingerings by Valentin Bogolubov who premiered the 3 Chromicons.

The sound sample is the live performance.

The Three Chromicons were premiered by pianist Valentin Bogolubov at the Société de concerts de St-Bruno, Saint-Bruno, Quebec, Canada, on 27 January 2007. Bogolubov's adventurous, technically demanding program, which also featured the works of Alexander Scriabin and Jean Chatillon, was accompanied by video animation of numerous works of art, four of which were created by the composer (among them, the Chromicon No. 3).

Ford explains the significance of these unique scores:

"In both my earliest chromicons, which I had begun to create by the 1980s, and in those I continue to make today, color is the element that links what is seen to what is heard. Unlike composer Alexander Scriabin, who may have been a true synaesthete as the result of a rare neurological condition enabling him actually to hear colors, my approach to color music has been by way of analogy. Although the tones in a musical scale and the colors of a prism both result from specific vibratory frequencies, scales can be replicated in various octaves while there is no comparable transposition observable in the case of the spectrum. However, the analogy between pitch and hue is implicit in the term "chromatic scale" (the Greek chrôma signifies "color"), and on that basis it is possible to equate the twelve tones of Western music with the hues on a twelvefold color wheel: red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, blue-green, blue, blue-violet, violet, and red-violet."

"By placing the pitch names of the chromatic scale in a separate band around the periphery of a such color wheel, much like the numbers on the face of a clock, and by rotating the central color wheel, it is possible for any given pitch to be aligned and associated with any hue. Such an easily constructed device, which I have dubbed the "chromonomicon," is the key necessary to decipher the musical meaning of my chromicons. The chromicon can be thought of as a calligraphic text in which each discrete area of color is a separate letter."

"Although there are literally millions of possible colors, all of them can be categorized as one of the twelve hues shown on the chromonomicon. Instead of being written from left to right or from right to left, the color-letters in a chromicon are arranged concentrically. The shapes of the individual letters, usually painted in watercolor and "illuminated" with metallic paints, colored pencils, and other media, are the result of each artist's creative meditation. The personal meaning of the chromiconic text as a whole emerges during and after this meditation, and may be expressed by a conventional title or accompanying commentary."

"Now, anyone wishing to realize a chromicon is at liberty to follow any path?straight or curvilinear?from the centermost letter to the periphery, constructing a cantus (melody) by notating the musical pitches associated with each contiguous color-letter encountered along the way. The cantus thereafter serves as the structural basis of a new, freely composed work. The individual pitches in the cantus may be moved to any octave, and may be repeated any number of times before proceeding to the next pitch in the sequence. Customarily, once the final tone of the cantus is reached, the entire melody is heard in reverse (retrograde), resulting in a palindrome. That palindrome is itself subject to varied repetition, so that in formal terms, each realization of a chromicon amounts to a 'mirror' theme with variations."

"Chromicon No. 3 travels even further back in collective human memory to the eighteenth century. For all its contemporary melodic and harmonic inflections, the style is pervasively contrapuntal, summoning to mind the polyphonic keyboard textures of Bach and Handel. It eschews the worldly strife and diversions mirrored in the first two chromicons, maintaining a dignified, highly stylized manner throughout, but with its unexpected final cadence on D, there seems to be a fleeting intimation of transcendence."

Video of Chromicon III
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHMw-vzZlGE

The Spanish National Anthem arranged for full Symphony Orchestra, there is a short version in my store in case you need it! Just need a sporting event now such as an Olympics!

The Marcha Real (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈmartʃa reˈal], "Royal March") is the national anthem of Spain. It is one of only three national anthems (along with that of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Kosovo) in the world to have no official lyrics.

One of the oldest in the world, the anthem was first printed in a document dated 1761 and entitled Libro de la Ordenanza de los Toques de Pífanos y Tambores que se tocan nuevamente en la Ynfant° Española (Book of the Ordenance of Newly Played Military Drum and Fife Calls by The Spanish Infantry ), by Manuel de Espinosa. Here it is entitled La Marcha Granadera ("March of the Grenadiers"). There is written its score on this book. According to this document, Manuel de Espinosa de los Monteros is the composer.

There is a false belief that Marcha Real?s author was Frederick II of Prussia, a great lover of music. This belief started in 1861 when it appears for the first time publied in La España militar (The Militar Spain). In 1864, the colonel Antonio Vallecillo publishes the history in the diary El Espíritu Público (The Public Spirit), making the supposed Prussian origin of Marcha Real popular. According to Vallecillo, the anthem was a gift from Frederick II to the soldier Juan Martín Álvarez de Sotomayor, who was serving in the Prussian Court to learn the military tactics developed by Frederick II?s army, under orders of King Charles III. In 1868 the history is published in Los Sucesos, changing the destinatary of the gift with Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, Count of Aranda. The myth was picked up like this in different publications of 1884 and 1903, until being included in 1908 in the Enciclopedia Espasa.

According to the tradition in 1770, Charles III declared the Marcha de Granaderos as the official Honor March, and with that formalized the habit of playing it in public and solemn acts. It became the official anthem during Isabel II?s reign.

After the 1868 Revolution, General Prim convoked a national contest to create an official anthem, but it was declared deserted, advising the jury that Marcha de Granaderos was considered as such. By Alfonso XIII?s time, it was established by a Royal Circular Order (27 August 1908) that interpreted the harmonization of the march done by Bartolomé Pérez Casas, Major Music of the Royal Corps of Halberdier Guards. During the Second Republic, Himno de Riego was adopted as official anthem, although after the Spanish Civil War, Marcha Real returned to be used as anthem, sometimes sung with the verses written by the poet José María Pemán in 1928.

The actual symphonic version of the Marcha Real that replaces the Pérez Casas one, belongs to maestro Francisco Grau and is the official one after the Royal Decree of 10 October 1997, when the Kingdom of Spain bought the author rights of the Marcha Real, then belonging to Pérez Casas? Heirs. According to the Royal Decree 1560/1997, the anthem should have a tone of B major and a tempo of 76 bpm (♩=76), with a form of AABB and a duration of 52 seconds.

Under the Trienio Liberal (1820-1823), the First Spanish Republic (1873?74) (when it enjoyed of a co-officiality) and the Second Spanish Republic (1931?1939), El Himno de Riego replaced La Marcha Real as the national anthem of Spain. At the conclusion of the Civil War, however, Francisco Franco restored La Marcha Real as the country?s national anthem, under its old title of La Marcha Granadera.

Interpretation and etiquette:

Military bands of the Spanish Armed Forces and the National Police Corps of Spain and civilian Marching bands and Concert bands play the B flat-major version of the anthem adapted for wind bands (as arranged by Francisco Grau), and playing the A Major version is optional.

The bugle call "To the Colors" in Spain is the version played by Bugle bands in Spanish churches in religious occasions and processions organized by civil groups and the parishes. Various versions adapted for the drum and the bugle are used, even though brass instruments play the anthem as well. But in some bugle bands, the A flat version of the anthem (the old official one, adapted for the bugle) is played. Only a bugle call is sounded when the B flat version is played.

Being the National Anthem, and in honor of the King and Queen of Spain, it?s a common practice for all to stand once it is played. Even though it is also played in church events, respect for the King and Queen (and the Royal Family as well) is required by everyone in attendance. As it happens civilians stand at attention while those in uniform salute when not in formation.

The current official version, as described in Royal Decree 1560/1997, is a sixteen-bar long phrase, divided in two sections, each one is made up of four repeated bars (AABB form). Tempo is set to ♩= 76 and key to B flat.

The long, complete version is the honors music for the King, while a shorter version without the repetitions is performed for the President of the Government of Spain, the Prince of Asturias, or during sporting events.

There are also three official arrangements: one for orchestra, another for military band, and a third for organ, written by Francisco Grau Vegara and requested by the Government of Spain. All in all, there are six different official adaptations, for each arrangement and length. They all were recorded by the Spanish National Orchestra and the Spanish Royal Guard Band as an official recording and released on compact disc for a limited period of time.

As the harmonization of the Marcha Real was written by Bartolomé Pérez Casas in the early 1900s, the copyright has not yet expired. The government bought it from Pérez Casas? estate in 1997 for 130,000,000 pesetas (~ ? 781,316) to avoid future legal problems. Until it expires, the copyright belongs to the Ministry of Culture and collecting societies charge copyright fees, which has led to criticism.

As a result, many different harmonisations have been devised by performers to avoid paying. Nonetheless, the rights to the 1997 Francisco Grau revision were transferred to the government at no charge, although they were not placed in the public domain.

Need an anthem fast? They are ALL in my store! All my anthem arrangements are also available for Orchestra, Recorders, Saxophones, Wind, Brass and Flexible band. If you need an anthem urgently for an instrumentation not in my store, let me know via e-mail, and I will arrange it for you FOC if possible! keithterrett@gmail.com