New Old Music

Recently, as an exercise, I made a new arrangement of the allegretto grazioso, third movement, of Mozart's piano sonata in B♭ major, K. 333, in which I chose to change the key but more to the point the modality, shifting the piece to a minor mode, and slowing it somewhat to better accommodate the minor. Getting that to the point that I was at least relatively satisfied with it, I chose to arrange the work for string quintet instead of solo piano. For the curious, the result can be heard here.

By contrast, here is Horowitz interpretation of the original:

For the purpose of this post, however, those are really neither here nor there but as impetus for what came after. Thinking about the situation, reminded by a reference to the play "Amadeus", I thought it a shame and unfair that old Salieri's works remain so widely unknown today, despite that, at least in my opinion, many of them are quite good. So I found myself thinking I ought to give him a little exposure as well to counterbalance the Mozart piece.

My available scores for his works are rather small, and recordings of any even more so, thus my options were few, but I settled on what I thought would be a workable option: I would do the two small movements, the Kyrie and Sanctus, from his Mass no. 1 in D major. The only score I have of it, however, is only that for SATB choir and organ, so that is the source I worked from (I'm aware there is a volume available that includes an orchestra accompaniment for this work, but I do not have access to it, so it does not inform the works which follow below).

As with the Mozart, I chose to change the modality to minor—B♭ minor in this case. Only minor modifications were needed for it, outside of the change of mode, but I reworked the organ for piano, and arranged the vocal lines for strings.

Once finished, I found I kept returning to the idea of the rest of the mass to the point that I began working on another piece, and then another, and so on until I had finished the whole work. I may yet tweak a phrase here or there, but for the nonce, here is a (possibly preliminary) recording of the new Mass in B♭ minor.

Rachin (op. 89)

In this post, I'll be making the premiere of the first and second movements of my three-part (book of) Job inspired piece, "רחין", that title being the initials of the first of the three lines of text that inspired the piece and its movements:

רוחִי חֻבָּלָה יָמַי נִזְעָכו
(אֶל־אֱלוֺהַ דָּלפָה עֵינִי)
קְבָרִם לִי

The whole score of Opus 89 can be heard here; in a different recording, the second movement ("אֶל־אֱלוֺהַ דָּלפָה עֵינִי") can be heard in solo here, and the third ("קְבָרִם לִי") can found on this blog here.

Mens Turbulenta

Tired, sick, feverish and frustrated one night, I turned to the keys as an outlet, and what resulted was a small piano work, named for the feverish mind that created it. Not completely satisfied with it in that form, the work gradually mutated into a work for strings, which can be heard here.

Saint-Saëns

Enchanted by Camille Saint-Saëns’s work for solo piano, “Carillon”, I recently decided to have a go at arranging the work for different instrumentations, resulting in both an orchestral arrangement and an arrangment for string quintet (2vn, va, vc, cb). In the end I think each, these as well as the piano original, has a certain charm of its own, though perhaps I’m biased: what do you think?

Carillon, Op. 72, no. 2 (for string quintet) and Carillon, Op. 72, no. 2 (for orchestra).

A third addition, I have also arranged Saint-Saëns' Toccata, Op. 72, no. 3 for string quintet.

Cor Carians

Details as to the piece, for any curious: it’s a score for string orchestra (violins, violas, cellos and contrabasses) and piano, with ad lib harp. It’s an exploration of the C minor chord and the æolian mode on C. Charpentier’s Regles de Composition (c. 1682) referred to Cm as “obscure and sad”, Schubart (in the work cited a few posts back) claimed it was both a “declaration of love” and “at the same time, the lament of unhappy love,” containing “all languishing, longing” & “sighing of the love-sick soul”, etc. Parts of that may be appropriate—at least in terms of inspiration, regardless of whether the music itself captures or expresses those things.

If anyone chooses to listen—it may be heard here—comments are welcome.

קברים לי

This piece is named for the line in Job 17:1, and, hopefully, reflects the feel of the passage as well. It is written for string orchestra and oboe, and as the third movement concludes the larger work, "Rachin" (Op. 89).

It can be heard here; for the full score, or the second movement, see this post.