REVERIE - Rachmaninoff, Chopin, Bach Audio release

Three pieces that will take you on a magical journey.. firstly to a surreal, sci-fi Alice in Wonderland 17th century, then a sci-fi adventure in various mysterious realms involving a dangerous battle of wits and spells, and finally, perhaps a flowers and stars strewn canopy of dreams awaits the persistent traveller.

REVERIE - A special new release..! Now you can listen to these offline. Liner notes are below.
STREAM/DOWNLOAD HERE

For the month of April 2021, I will donate 75%* proceeds of all Bandcamp sales to Hackney Chinese Community Services to help them support ESEA community through the pandemic. It took me a while to get get in sync with Bandcamp Friday but I finally caught it this time around. Bandcamp Friday means that admin fees for artists are waived. So for any sales I make TODAY, the donations will go further!

Feel free to donate directly to Hackney Chinese Community Services.

The Bach is still the video with my highest viewer ratings, though "Take Me Back to the Ocean" is catching up!)

Reverie consists of:
Fantasia in C minor BWV906 by JS Bach
Polonaise in Ab (“Heroic”) by Chopin
Prelude in D by Rachmaninoff.

My playing was recorded and mastered by Marcin Wolniewicz at Alice’s Loft, 2015. I released as video on Youtube but somehow forgot to released the audio until 2021.

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BACH

This piece is full of cascading arpeggios, drama and conversation between the treble and bass parts. Broadly speaking, the structure follows a conventional pattern, moving from C minor to the relative major (Eb), then to the dominant at the end of the 1st section/start of the 2nd section, then working it's way back to the tonic. However, there are many unexpected twists and turns, and the chromaticism in the piece, together with moments of equally surprising serenity are distinctive and appealing features of this work.

Bach wrote a fugue which is meant to follow this Fantasia, but it was unfinished.

Chopin Ab - Art with Text.png

CHOPIN


After the noble opening chord in Eb, the chromatic vibrations of the introduction infuse the music with a sense of mystery as well as grandeur. After escalating effusively to an altitude of surprising sweetness, the main theme appears, in the tonic of Ab, featuring resounding, regal thirds and dotted dance-like rhythms in the treble, leaps down the keys in the bass, and expansive arpeggiated chords across the keys, expressing great exuberance and spirit.

Following this is an interlude with a sonorous right hand melody accompanied by a quietly percussive left hand continuing the dance-like mood with a repeated pattern (featuring a quaver followed by two semiquavers), before the main theme returns once more. In line with the discordant reverberations of the opening of the Polonaise, Chopin signals a fantastically harmonically disruptive modulation with four resplendent arpeggiated E major chords. This gives way to the rise of the persistent staccato drum beat of left hand octaves, joined by the sound of a pair of military trumpet played by the right hand. Initially the trumpets are quiet, but gradually, and by way of a switch to the dominant key of Eb major, they intensify in tone to great excitement, before being interrupted by the aforementioned disruptive E major chords, and a further repetition of the trumpet duet. The rhythm from the earlier interlude returns with a feeling of ease which pervades this second, and far longer interlude. The huge contrast between the intensity/epic nature/grandness and this feeling of release and relaxation is one of the aspects that makes the structure of this piece so emotionally effective.

The gentle thrum of this interlude turns a corner into yet another unexpected harmonic direction and use of texture. The sinuous right hand melody drifts as if it were a leaf carried by the whim of a gentle breeze (perhaps conveyed by the left hand). The melody winds plaintively towards F minor with subtly enigmatic peals of C hidden in the right hand part, and shadowy patterns in the left hand, and seems to be searching for a way back home.

We arrive back to the main theme, and though it appears now for the third time, there is a special sense of victory in homecoming and triumph. What a world of difference between the introverted vagaries of the previous passage and the extroverted sound and mood of the final section, the tumultuous cacophony catapults into an immensely exhilarating coda.

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RACHMANINOFF


By turns serene, singing, filled with longing, turbulent and star-gazing, this is a dreamy wander through colourful, emotional landscapes.

Here's a story that comes to mind about how I interpret this piece.

Quiet water, one swan swimming. Late summer. Lavender skies clouded with gold. Above and below water, a choir of winged voices float.

Emotion collects in larger waves. A shadow falls. Gold light ripples. Into memories of longing and salt tears sorrow. An icy mist descends on warm feathers. Cold, expanded, singing the moon sails into view... Shadow water glows brighter.

Look up.. the sky is afire with golden birds breathing purple stars. Ice mist thawed to rainbow droplets glisten, monster fish stir in the deep waters, surfacing and leaping through the air to taste the stars.

The sky brightens with the sound of traffic, the island is a lost place of tomorrow's dreams, sinks into a pose of nostalgia, into the waves, into the green-blue.


 
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