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)

Contains Le Roi Lear: Pr�lude,Premi�re Fanfare, and La Mort de Cord�lia,Toomai des �l�phants, Rodrigue et Chim�ne: Pr�lude � l?acte 1p. Le Martyre de Saint S�bastien: La Passion , and No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence

From Robert Orledge's notes:

My interest in the wonderful music of Claude Debussy began in the 1980s when I researched and published a book with Cambridge University Press entitled Debussy and the Theatre. During the course of my studies in Paris, I was amazed to discover that Debussy planned over 50 theatrical works but only finished two of these entirely by himself (the opera Pell�as et M�lisande in 1893?1902 and the ballet Jeux for Diaghilev?s Ballets Russes in 1912?13). Of the rest, many were never started musically (like Siddartha and Orph�e-roi with the Oriental scholar Victor Segalen, 1907); some had a few tantalising sketches (like the Edgar Allan Poe opera Le Diable dans le beffroi, 1902?03); some were half-finished (like his other Poe opera La Chute de la Maison Usher, 1908?17); while others were musically complete but had their orchestrations completed by other composers (like Khamma, by Charles Koechlin, 1912?13; or Le Martyre de Saint S�bastien and La Bo�te � joujoux by his ?angel of corrections? [?l?ange des Corrections?] Andr� Caplet in 1911 and 1919 respectively).

For it has to be admitted that what some scholars call Debussy?s ?compulsive achievement? could equally well be viewed as laziness, especially as far as the minute detail required for calligraphing his orchestral scores was concerned. It was as if creating the music itself was of greater importance than controlling its final sound, even if Debussy was an imaginative orchestrator when he found the time and energy to do it. It also seems true that Debussy also preferred inventing ideas to turning them into complete pieces. However, despite the lack of detail in many of his sketches (missing clefs, key signatures, dynamics, phrasing, etc.) the notes themselves are surprisingly accurate, whether or not they can be compared with a later draft. Thus, a large number of sketches exist for his Chinese ballet No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence and it is not too difficult to see which parts of Georges de Feure?s 1913 scenario (see below) inspired which ideas. But Debussy hardly made any attempt to join them together after the first few bars.

It was usually up to his publisher, Jacques Durand, to find solutions when Debussy risked a breach of contract. Debussy was supposed to supervise the orchestrations completed by others, but this supervision was usually very light and restricted to quiet, sensitive moments in which problems were easier to spot. Far from jealously guarding every one of his created notes, as Ravel did, Debussy once even went as far as to ask Koechlin to ?write a ballet for him that he would sign? on 26 March 1914 when he was hard-pressed to fulfil his lucrative contract for No-ja-li with Andr� Charlot at the Alhambra Theatre in London. In the end, Debussy (through Durand) sent Charlot the symphonic suite Printemps instead, whose orchestration had been completed by Henri Busser in the Spring of 1912.

So, when I was offered early retirement as Professor of Music at Liverpool University in 2004, I seized the opportunity it would give me to spend time trying to reconstruct some of Debussy?s lost potential masterpieces from his existing sketches and drafts?then orchestrating them in Debussy?s style when this was appropriate. I had begun this mission in 2001 with the most promising project, the missing parts of Scene 2 of La Chute de la Maison Usher and the sheer joy it gave me at every stage persuaded me to tackle other projects, especially when Debussy experts were unable to identify exactly where I took over from Debussy (and vice versa) in Usher.

Contains A Night in the House of Usher Un Jour affreux avec Le Diable dans le beffroi, Les accords de septi�me regrettent!!!, Petite Valse,F�tes galantes, and Pr�lude � ?L?Histoire de Tristan?

From Robert Orledge's notes:

My interest in the wonderful music of Claude Debussy began in the 1980s when I researched and published a book with Cambridge University Press entitled Debussy and the Theatre. During the course of my studies in Paris, I was amazed to discover that Debussy planned over 50 theatrical works but only finished two of these entirely by himself (the opera Pell�as et M�lisande in 1893?1902 and the ballet Jeux for Diaghilev?s Ballets Russes in 1912?13). Of the rest, many were never started musically (like Siddartha and Orph�e-roi with the Oriental scholar Victor Segalen, 1907); some had a few tantalising sketches (like the Edgar Allan Poe opera Le Diable dans le beffroi, 1902?03); some were half-finished (like his other Poe opera La Chute de la Maison Usher, 1908?17); while others were musically complete but had their orchestrations completed by other composers (like Khamma, by Charles Koechlin, 1912?13; or Le Martyre de Saint S�bastien and La Bo�te � joujoux by his ?angel of corrections? [?l?ange des Corrections?] Andr� Caplet in 1911 and 1919 respectively).

For it has to be admitted that what some scholars call Debussy?s ?compulsive achievement? could equally well be viewed as laziness, especially as far as the minute detail required for calligraphing his orchestral scores was concerned. It was as if creating the music itself was of greater importance than controlling its final sound, even if Debussy was an imaginative orchestrator when he found the time and energy to do it. It also seems true that Debussy also preferred inventing ideas to turning them into complete pieces. However, despite the lack of detail in many of his sketches (missing clefs, key signatures, dynamics, phrasing, etc.) the notes themselves are surprisingly accurate, whether or not they can be compared with a later draft. Thus, a large number of sketches exist for his Chinese ballet No-ja-li ou Le Palais du Silence and it is not too difficult to see which parts of Georges de Feure?s 1913 scenario (see below) inspired which ideas. But Debussy hardly made any attempt to join them together after the first few bars.

It was usually up to his publisher, Jacques Durand, to find solutions when Debussy risked a breach of contract. Debussy was supposed to supervise the orchestrations completed by others, but this supervision was usually very light and restricted to quiet, sensitive moments in which problems were easier to spot. Far from jealously guarding every one of his created notes, as Ravel did, Debussy once even went as far as to ask Koechlin to ?write a ballet for him that he would sign? on 26 March 1914 when he was hard-pressed to fulfil his lucrative contract for No-ja-li with Andr� Charlot at the Alhambra Theatre in London. In the end, Debussy (through Durand) sent Charlot the symphonic suite Printemps instead, whose orchestration had been completed by Henri Busser in the Spring of 1912.

So, when I was offered early retirement as Professor of Music at Liverpool University in 2004, I seized the opportunity it would give me to spend time trying to reconstruct some of Debussy?s lost potential masterpieces from his existing sketches and drafts?then orchestrating them in Debussy?s style when this was appropriate. I had begun this mission in 2001 with the most promising project, the missing parts of Scene 2 of La Chute de la Maison Usher and the sheer joy it gave me at every stage persuaded me to tackle other projects, especially when Debussy experts were unable to identify exactly where I took over from Debussy (and vice versa) in Usher.

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 Soci�t� 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 chr�ma 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

Con-Tse-To ? a Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Concert Band was composed in 2013 at the request of Kenneth Tse. It is in three movements ? 1. Pasodoble Melanie, 2. Lamento and 3. Danza Jubiloso. First performance was July 14, 2013 for the Hong Kong International Saxophone Symposium at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Hong Kong Chamber Wind Philharmonic; Victor Tam, Conductor; Kenneth Tse, Saxophone Soloist.

The first movement ? Pasodoble Melanie, is in the traditional form of the march in Spain knownas the Pasodoble. It has a beginning theme in traditional march style using Spanish flavor harmoniesand melodies. As the Spanish pasodoble is in the same form as American marches, the second theme isthe ?Trio? section. In the Spanish pasodoble, it is customary to have the first presentation of this secondtheme played extremely softly in the clarinets. It is also common during the repeat of the Trio to have a soloist such as a piccolo displaying an obligato of great virtuosic melodies in counterpoint to the clarinets. I felt this would be a very appropriate place for an alto saxophone obligato. In this pasodoble the thirdpresentation of the Trio is shortened to allow for the first cadenza. Since I met Kenneth Tse for the first time in Bu�ol (Valencia), Spain, I thought it would be very appropriate to use this traditional form for the firstmovement for his concerto. It is a Spanish custom for a composer to give a pasodoble composition as a gift such as to a musician or politician and the title of the piece often references the name of recipient?s wife. Kenneth Tse?s wife?s name is Melanie so this movement is dedicated to her.

The second movement ? Lamento was adapted from a melody of mine ?El a�o del Trumpetista? originally composed in 2010. I thought the beautiful sound of Dr. Tse?s saxophone playing would be very complimentary for this melody.

The third movement ? Danza Jubiloso is in allegro tempo with the first theme based on leaps of afourth and an octave in duple meter. The second theme is mostly in 7/8 meter. There is also a bit of a jazz element of harmonies and the added instruments of a drum set and jazz double bass in pizzicato.

Con-Tse-To was awarded Finalist category in the Band Composition Competition of the American Prize in 2017. One of only two Concertos with Band awarded that year. The full band instrumentation is available on Musica Nova USA.

Gregory Fritze is a prize-winning composer and Fulbright Scholar, as well as an active performer. He recently retired from Berklee College of Music where he was Professor and Chair of Composition, serving on the faculty from 1979 to 2016. He has written over ninety compositions for orchestra, band, chamberensembles and soloists. He has won over fifty composition awards both nationally and internationally. His compositions include works published by several publishers in the United States, South America and Europe that have been performed extensively throughout the world.

He has been a frequent traveler to Spain since 1993 and has promoted compositions by Spanish composers around the world. He is the only composer who has been commissioned six times by Spanishbands for Certamen competitions, with each band winning first prize.

His compositions are recorded on Albany Records, MSR Classics, Crystal Records, Mark Records and others. He has been a guest lecturer, conductor and performer at many colleges, universities and music festivals in the United States, Canada, Japan, South America and Europe. He was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1954 and has Composition degrees from the Boston Conservatory and Indiana University. He now resides in Daytona Beach Shores, Florida.

The piano transcription was done by Derek Reme?.