Beschreibung
The audio is from a Sibelius-generated preview. The piano practice facilities here are being renovated, after which point I'll upload a recorded take. Thanks for your patience!
From my forthcoming collection of intermediate and late-intermediate piano compositions in Impressionist styles, this is an homage to Maurice Ravel's piano writing as shown in pieces including the Sonatine, Le tombeau de Couperin, and others.
It introduces techniques that Ravel frequently uses but that less-than-advanced students rarely encounter in repertoire at their level: sometimes-awkward hand and arm crossings, extended tertian chords (9th/11th/13th voicings), whole tone sonorities, and some modal writing, to name a few, while still maintaining a clarity of voicing that students will find in Ravel's own music. All of these can be disorienting to students encountering Ravel's music for the first time, so students will benefit from Ravel-preparatory repertoire, like this piece, that introduces these techniques.
Since most currently published collections of Impressionist-style pedagogical repertoire focus on Claude Debussy's language, this piece is a welcome addition to the student piano literature and will help bridge the gaps between standard teaching repertoire and pieces like Ravel's Sonatine, while also exposing students to a new, rich, and inviting tonal language that will inspire them to seek out more of Ravel's compositions.
On a more personal level, this piece was also inspired by my main non-music hobby: raising and releasing butterflies. An upcoming relocation will allow me to build my own butterfly garden in my new home, and I can't wait to create my own butterfly-friendly outdoor paradise filled with native plants and wildflowers. I hope my garden will have as many butterflies flitting through it as are depicted in the 32nd-note passages in this piece!