Instrumentation: Solo Piano
First Performance: Szuyu Su, Hahn Hall at Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, CA. June 12, 2024.
Commissioned by Music Academy of the West for Szuyu Su, for the 2024 Solo Piano Competition Winner’s Recital
Duration: 7 minutes
The works and performances that I respond to most, whether improvised or fully notated, are both intuitively free and physically embodied, giving the illusion of being generated in the moment. This piece explores some of those qualities: chords float in and out of time, gradually becoming more sure of themselves; when they return it is between multi-layered streams of activity, which can appear both chaotic but also constructed. Melodies and “solos” appear, even more improvisatory but also patterned with enough irregular frequency to break the illusion. The hands continually lie in place and in wait.
In place and at hand are allusions to the Latin terms in situ and in promptu, the latter of which is directly tied to the word impromptu. That word took on a new meaning in the 19th Century as a character piece for the piano — made famous by Schubert and Chopin – unfixed in form and characteristic of improvisation. The ideal pianist for this piece “discovers" the material as it initially unfolds, as if for the first time, but also dashes off capricious passages of calculated virtuosity. Readiness-at-hand meets sleight-of-hand. I am grateful to Music Academy for the opportunity to write for Szuyu Su, whose enormous range and imagination influenced the multiple directions of this piece.
Anthony Cheung