PROGRAM NOTE
VERTICALS is a seventeen-minute solo piano work in one movement, which can be divided into several interlocking sections roughly suggesting an exposition / contrast / recapitulation / coda formal plan. All materials of the work, however, originate from the opening sonority—a vertical structure (chord) comprising eight notes (though containing only six of the available tones of the chromatic scale). As the piece progresses, this vertical sonority serves also as a kind of structural signpost, helping delineate the larger formal blocks of the work.
On quite another level, VERTICALS is also about piano playing. Though it quotes no past music and alludes to no “other styles” per se, various passages in this work are very much inspired by the pianistic style and textures, indeed by the sheer physical sensation experienced by the performer, of some of the music that has come to constitute the canon of the virtuoso piano literature.
VERTICALS (1982) was commissioned by and is dedicated to my dear friend pianist Alan Feinberg who first performed it on March 2, 1983, in his debut recital at Merkin Hall, New York City.
—Shulamit Ran
INFORMATION
Commissioned by
Alan Feinberg
Premiere: March 2, 1983
Merkin Hall, New York City
Alan Feinberg, piano
Duration: c. 17’
RECORDING
Recorded by Seth Knopp, piano, on the Peabody Trio disc Shulamit Ran, New World Records 80554–2
SHEET MUSIC
Available from your favorite sheet music seller, or directly from Theodore Presser.