This Is It! No. 4

Last Sunday I performed the most recent in the series "This Is It!" — the complete piano music of NB, recital number 4. I will be playing these pieces again in a few days for friends in New Haven who could not attend the performance in Middletown. Here's the program, with a few general notes at the end:

This Is It! Part 4

Piano music of Neely Bruce

performed by the composer

Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University

Sunday 12 October 2014 at 3:00 p.m.

prelude à l’improvisto, in free chromatic style

Serial Invention No. 1 (2006)

Modal Study No. 4 (2013)

Serial Invention No. 2 (2010)

Two-part Invention and Chorale (2007)

Pandiatonic Study No. 2 (2014)

Modal Study No. 1 (2006)

Pandiatonic Study No. 1 (2011)

Serial Invention No. 3 (2006)

Modal Study No. 2 (2011)

Algorithmic Gymnopédie No. 1 (2004)

[algorithim by NB; realized by Dave Ruder]

Andante variée (1969)

The Two-Twin Tango (2010)

For Kai and Micah Klaaren London

Three Lullabies (2001)

A Lullaby for Alex / A Lullaby for Max

A Lullaby for the parents  (the twins are asleep)

OVER

Variations on a Polonaise (1968)

Tema

Allegro

Calm and spacious

Lento ma con moto

Arioso

Presto non troppo

Adagio molto

Fast and crowded

Allegro con brio

Tema, da capo

* * * * *

Marcia da Ballo. Rondo Fanfare

by Anthony Philip Heinrich (1780-1860)

* * * * * * * * *

Today’s recital is the fourth in the series “This Is It!” It is my intention to play in public and record my complete works for solo piano, with the works for harpsichord and my one piece for solo celeste thrown in for good measure. (I will leave the organ works to other performers.) If I am successful in this, I will be the first pianist/com-poser to record  my complete piano music.

There are twelve projected works in the series — fall, spring and summer through the summer of 2017. However, there will almost certainly be a thirteenth recital, and perhaps a fourteenth. So much immersion in my piano music, and the ideas and techniques behind it, is generating new works, some modest in scope, some more ambitious. We’ll see how it pans out. Perhaps I am involved in a situation like the race between Achilles and the tortoise…

In any event, the next recital in the series, “This Is It!” No 5, will be Sunday 22 February 2015 at 3:00 p.m. in Crowell Concert Hall. Hope to see you there. The program will include “Homage to Charlie” (in honor of C. E. Ives), more Friendly Fugues, my celeste piece, and various pieces for two pianos (the second pianist TBA).

—Neely Bruce

October 2014