SKU: BA.BA05070-41

ISBN 9790006463480. 24.5 x 17.5 cm inches.

This separately published Critical Commentary offers extensive information on the genesis, reception, sources, and readings of the works included in the music volume.

SKU: PR.110418390

ISBN 9781491134603. UPC: 680160685158.

Eric Ewazen’s THREE INVENTIONS were inspired by Bach’s Two-part Inventions, yet they sound thoroughly like Ewazen. Composed for harpsichord (with a piano adaptation following later), Ewazen’s inventions maintain a pure “one note per hand” texture until their final chord, with strong-but-free imitative counterpoint between the two voices. While Ewazen may be best known for his wind music, he is a pianist himself, and composers’ works for their own instrument are a direct insight into how they write for their own performances. The piano adaptation of THREE INVENTIONS is also available as a separate publication.
THREE INVENTIONS was written for my dear friend Maria Rojas, who premiered the work on a faculty recital at Juilliard. Maria is both a pianist and a harpsichordist, and I first met her when she gave a demonstration of the harpsichord for the students in my theory classes.I’ve always been captivated by Bach’s series of Two-Part and Three-Part Inventions. With the Two-Part Inventions, I’m amazed how Bach could create such wonderful intricacy and counterpoint with only two voices. I consequently modeled my inventions after the counterpoint of Bach, involving the traditional contrapuntal devices he used: imitation, development, harmonic and modal shifts, fragmentation, and sequence, essentially creating a dialog between two completely equal voices conversing with each other!Bach wrote 15 Two-Part Inventions (as well as 15 Three-Part Inventions, not to mention the 48 preludes and fugues in The Well-Tempered Clavier!), and that’s just the start of his voluminous repertoire for the keyboard! I was happy just to write three!!!Each of my inventions has a distinctive mood. The first is in a relaxed, yet cheerful C Major tonality (as a nod to Bach’s Invention No. 1 in C Major); the second is heartfelt and lyrical; and the third invention (involving a Gigue rhythm in the compound meter of 12/8) is energetic, and full of life and spontaneity. The third is primarily in a minor tonality, resulting in a feeling of drama, bringing the THREE INVENTIONS to an exciting finale.

SKU: FG.55011-764-8

ISBN 9790550117648.

The title of Esa Pietilä’s solo harpsichord work Fata morgana (2019) refers to a special weather con-dition, which creates illusory effect of mirage-like fairy castle-like monuments in the horizon of the sea. The piece brings forth the frightening bass sonority on double manual, full size harpsichord and the brightness on the treble and makes a dialogue out of them. “I got fasci-nated by the sonority, character and power of the low register sound on the instrument, es-pecially when used in non-traditional way and found some kind of especially delightful and outlandish cluster-mud and airy glimmering things which seem to play together, the com-poser describes. The challenges of the piece lie in rhythmical ideas, which are surprisingly multi-faceted and in the short, improvised section.

Duration: c. 6’

Esa Pietilän soolo-cembalolle tehdyn sävellyksen otsikko Fata morgana (2019) viittaa erityisen sääil-miön aiheuttamaan illusatoriseen kangastuksen tapaiseen efektiin, joka tuo esiin satulinnojen kaltaisten rakennelmien ilmaantumisen meren horisonttiin. Sävellys tuo esiin cembalon bas-sorekisterin pelottavuuden sekä diskantin kirkkauden ja käy niillä vuoropuhelua. Haltioiduin cembalon alarekisterin erityisestä soinnista, karakteerista ja voimasta, jos sitä käyttää hyvinkin ei-perinteisesti. Löysin myös erityisen hauskasti soivaa klusteri-mutaa ja ilmavaa kimallusta, jotka sointuvat yhteen, Pietilä kuvaa sävellystään. Kappaleen haasteena ovat rytmisesti yllät-tävät ja monitahoiset ideat sekä lyhyt improvisaatiojakso.