Pierement Parade by TrevorGrahl

Mechanical musical instruments have always fascinated me, especially mechanical organs with their vast repertoire of marches, gallops, foxtrots, cake-walks, waltzes, overtures, love songs, and even newly-commissioned pieces. My piece, Pierement Parade (Dutch: Barrel Organ or Mechanical Organ Parade) is a tribute to such instruments, and their idiosyncrasies: their characteristic registrations (organ "orchestrations"), harmonic progressions, and of course, repertoire, with particular attention to the idea of the musical march in this case. The sound-world of the piece is designed to reflect the clunky, the raw, and the hooting-fluty-reedy-shuddering voice with which these instruments so beautifully sing - a fact I found ironic during the process of composition as I strove to make a band of real instruments sound like their mimetic air-driven counterparts: an imitated imitation.

This piece is meant to be the first in a diptych of pieces dealing with marches. The second, Trauermarsch Szenen (link below) should immediately follow Pierement Parade.

https://soundcloud.com/trevorgrahl/trauermarsch-szenen-evening-of

Continuum Ensemble, Brian Current, Cond.

N.B. - The speed of two short sections in the middle has been increased by 10 BPM in this version of the recording.