Bach-Shards

SKU: PR.11441345S

UPC: 680160608829. 8.5 x 11 inches.

BACH-SHARDS was commissioned by the Brentano String Quartet as part of their Art of the Fugue companion-piece project. Ran deliberately stays within the realm of Bach-like vocabulary, altering syntax in ways that add up to something slightly different from the anticipated sum of the parts. The work builds up to a climax that makes the entry point into Bach’s Contrapunctus X seem thoroughly natural.
While composing Bach-Shards I found myself gravitating, intuitively and gradually, toward a dual goal.  First, though the tension and dissonance inherent in certain moments of Bach’s own maze-like  contrapuntal structures could quite easily and naturally lead one into a pungent contemporary terrain, I opted not to stray outside the realm of Bach-like materials and harmonic language.  Instead, it was my hope to alter their relationships and context in ways that add up to a something that’s slightly different than the anticipated sum of the parts.  A mildly deconstructed Bach, if you will.  The other important challenge I set for myself was building up the latter, toccata-like portion of Bach-Shards in a way that would make the entry point of the fugue which it precedes, Contrapunctus X, seem thoroughly natural.  It was my intent to have the first fugal entrance feel like a huge and much welcome release of the energy created by my Prelude’s penultimate stretch, with its bravura figurations elaborating on an insistent dominant pedal point.