Pastels

2024 . . . Four Small Tonal Studies for piano (4:00)

Recent compositions have shifted from my longstanding focus on contrapuntal writing, especially canons, and animated sound masses to chordal development of my personal harmonic language. Crystallography and Folio explore arpeggiated chords, pitch constellations of four or more pitches forming a mixture of pure, consonant, and mildly dissonant intervals. The changing tonal color of these sonorities in succession, from bright to dark, prompted this small tonal study. As the color or brightness differences are subtle, pastel water color painting is an appropriate visual metaphor.

A video cross-dissolving my own digital images combined with synthesized sound makes a multimedia version viewable on YouTube:

Pastels — Four Small Studies of Tonal Color for piano: