Piano
SKU:
HL.14001903
Composed
by Per Norgard. Music
Sales America. Classical.
Book [Softcover]. Music
Sales #KP00981. Published
by Music Sales
(HL.14001903).
ISBN
9788759859605.
Danish.
Animals In
Concert - Three pieces
for Piano solo by Per
Norgard. Programme Note
1. A Tortoise's
Tango (1984) - dur.: 4'
2. Light of a Night
- Paul meets bird (1989)
- dur.: 6' 3.
Hermit Crab Tango -
Esperanza (1997) - dur.:
5' The pieces can
be performed together or
one by one. In the1980s,
quite a few finds turned
up in Per Norgard's
music. The material could
be, say, a number of song
birds' equilibrist
melodic lines, the
overtones of the ocean
surf, or waltzing themes
by the schizophrenic
artist Adolf Wolfli
(1864-1930). Or again, as
heard here, it can be the
rhythms and motifs of the
tango and a Beatles song
(with bird), explored in
three independent piano
pieces that form the
Animals in Concert suite,
about which the composer
writes: A
Tortoise's Tango: The
tortoise as tango dancer
must presumably possess
certain rhythmic
peculiarities, which I
have chosen to express by
letting the tune of the
tortoise shuffle broadly,
tripartite through the
strict four partite time
of tango. Tortoise
Tango was the original
title of this piece,
written for Achilles (the
pianist Yvar Mikhashoff),
for his so called tango
project, including new
tangos for piano by
composers from all over
the world. Light of
a Night (Paul meets bird)
was commissioned by
pianist Aki Takahashi. It
is a reworked arrangement
for piano of the Beatles
song Blackbird. As some
of us will recall, the
Beatles on The White
Album let the beautiful
song to the blackbird be
accompanied by an
(apparently) live
blackbird song. It is
this authentic bird-motif
world that in Light of a
Night weaves itself into
the Beatles melody and in
turn is gradually
infected by it, so that a
completely new third
entity ensues: a kind of
Bird-rock ballad (or
maybe it is a
Beatle-bird?).
Hermit Crab Tango
(Esperanza): The tango
situation is quite
special for a Hermit
Crab. It is a well-known
fact that the hermit crab
- this soft animal - must
run the gauntlet among
the many perils at the
bottom of the sea when it
must move hose. I have
chosen to express the
angers by a tango pattern
- sharp as a cactus -
through which the tune,
optimistic, slips to its
new shelter. I have
borrowed the tune from
songwriter Hanne
Methling's Introduction:
'I want to get through
this time!' she sings in
a ecstatically ascending
melody line - and I
believe that these words
must correspond very well
to the mood of the hermit
crab: 'Esperanza'- the
green runners of hope
wind among the
latticework formed by the
tango rows.
