FIVE MINIATURES, for piano | Philip Sharp | 2016 by Tom Harrold

Five Miniatures is dedicated to Philip Sharp, who commissioned it in autumn 2015. I am indebted to him for asking for this work, as it gave me the opportunity to write my first solo piano piece for over a decade.

I have little intention to write programmatic music in most of my output, and these five title-less miniatures seek to explore the colour, dynamism and virtuosity of what I find to be a difficult instrument to write for. It could be imagined that each miniature is a study of sorts, as each one exists within its own ‘box’: that is to say that they individually deal with a very limited scope of disparate musical material. That said, they are linked by a series of repeating chordal progressions and thematic ‘hooks’, with each movement utilising a harmonic language that is built with stacked fourths and fifths, and melodic material which features minor thirds and compound major 2nds throughout.

Contains tracks

• FIVE MINIATURES: i by Tom Harrold
• FIVE MINIATURES: ii by Tom Harrold
• FIVE MINIATURES: iii by Tom Harrold
• FIVE MINIATURES: iv by Tom Harrold
• FIVE MINIATURES: v by Tom Harrold