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This is the tracklist of CD2 of the Double CD. Listen to the first track, which is an introduction by Robert von Heeren. Cover-Art by Manuela Buechler, AI Design, Switzerland.
This doublealbum is the third in the series "Demanding pianomusic for children and students".
Bartók composed his "10 Easy Pieces" parallel to the first edition of his children's pieces in 1908. There are 11 pieces, but Bartók did not give the first piece (entitled "Dedication" sometimes also translated as "Introduction") a number. Except for No. 1, which introduces a short melody played in unison by both hands in parallel movement, the pieces are by no means "easy". The "Dedication" acts like a kind of sound meditation: it introduces the D major chord (D – F sharp - A) in the first three bars, which is extended in the 4th bar by the major seventh C sharp (the leading note of D major) to the D major-7 four-note sound. This is a pointer to the basic idea behind the following pieces. For everything revolves around the unresolved, broken, which longs for the dissolution and simple harmony. D major ultimately serves as an anchor and target point: the last piece, the
“Bear Dance”, dissolves after many harmonic turns and friction right at the end, somewhat pertly and jokingly back into this D major triad.
Bartók's "9 Little Piano Pieces" date from 1926 and are by no means "little": even for the advanced pianist - you guessed it already – they are a challenge. Compared to the "10 Easy Pieces", the nine pieces are, with a few exceptions, even more difficult and atonal. They are interspersed with major and minor seconds (full- and semitone intervals), which could have been the general idea behind these works. This is especially noticeable in the “March of the Beasts” - in my opinion the title is a reference to the dissonant sound of the major and minor second. The first four pieces are "Dialogues": contrapuntal duets, partly in style of a canon, which remind one remotely of Bach's inventions, but with a much more modern tonal arrangement. There are many bar changes and an increase at the end, in which the dissonance then usually dissolves into a powerful major triad.
The "Song" is wrapped in a sequence of cluster-chords with three or four notes, which are played in a percussion-like style. The beautiful melody is introduced only in the middle part. After a brief two-part introduction, it magically detaches itself from the - gently beginning - harmonic accompaniment in A major and blossoms into undreamt-of beauty: an effect that Bartók also uses in the middle section of the “Rhapsody” of the children's pieces. Many of the “9 little piano pieces” are very rhythmic, which becomes particularly clear in the “Tambourine”: here the piano is transformed into a percussion instrument, with dissonant chords based on C major ingeniously imitating the rattling effect of the tambourine. No. 9 has the somewhat inconspicuous title "Hungarian Prelude". In fact, it is the most complex and longest work in this series, which forms the climax. After a long contrapuntal introduction (a kind of exposition), the tempo suddenly changes: the melody presented at the beginning is taken up in ever new ways with a very rhythmic accompaniment until it then increases in an extremely fast tempo into a massive final chord - which again contains major seconds’ suspense.
The "11 Pezzi Infantili" (“11 Children’s Pieces”) by the Italian composer, pianist, conductor and music critic Alfredo Casella were composed in 1920, six years earlier than Bartók's “9 Little Piano Pieces”. Like Bartók, Casella also follows his own way: while Bartók subordinates himself to the melodic style of folk song material, Casella breaks even more strongly with the musical tradition of the 19th century. This, however, in a very playful manner, which is already indicated by the title of the 11 pieces: in Italian the word "infantili" means both "childlike" and "childish/infantile".
- Genre
- Classical
Contains tracks
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