Chamber Music Piano
SKU: PR.110418250
Composed by Shulamit Ran.
Sws. Performance Score.
12 pages. Duration 11
minutes. Theodore Presser
Company #110-41825.
Published by Theodore
Presser Company
(PR.110418250).
ISBN
9781491133859. UPC:
680160683345. 9 x 12
inches.
This
intriguing 11-minute work
builds on alternations
between declamatory
unmetered phrases
(beginning as
“sonorous, rubato,
with great aplomb and
resonanceâ€) and
strictly motoric rhythmic
sections, developing in
waves of increasing drama
and intensity.
Commissioned by the
Naumburg Foundation for
pianist Xiaohui
Yang’s Carnegie
Hall premiere.
Ballade
is a one-movement work of
approximately 11 minutes,
divided into three main
parts that are played
without significant
break.Ballade alternates
sections where the
performer is invited to
apply great interpretive
freedom, especially on
the temporal plane, with
contrasting sections that
are quite precise and
rhythmic. Although
carefully notated, the
“freerâ€
sections (often marked
rubato) certainly allude
at times to the kind of
repertoire that is
familiar to most concert
pianists, doing so not by
way of quotation but by
the type of expressivity,
affect, and even
passagework. Thus, the
performer should think of
the score as a
“blueprint,â€
where the many
descriptive words I have
inserted throughout the
score (ranging from
sonorous, rubato, with
great aplomb and
resonance as the work
begins, to with greater
motion, in a series of
ever-expanding
“waves†later
on) are intended to act
as triggers for
one’s sense of
imagination and fantasy
to take off and bring the
music alive! An
inscription in the score
urges the pianist to play
fearlessly and
exuberantly, but also
tenderly!
