Works » By Title » P » Piano Study Number Two (18:00 / 1986)

Piano Study Number Two is a tape work begun in 1981 and completed in 1986. It consists of seven tapes which can be combined for performance in any order, and so potentially the structure of the work is different each time it is performed. The timbres used within this piece were created entirely from recordings of piano sounds which were then digitally enhanced. Piano Study Number Two, with its variable formal structure, represents the point of departure for my current compositional interest in music which has no macrostructure defined “a priori”. Rather, I try to concentrate on creating the elements of a composition and depend upon the listener to find the meaning in the work by stucturing their experience of it. The individual tapes of the piece are slow moving and methodical in character, and concentrate on developing small two and three note motifs through transposition, inversion and time scaling. In this version of the piece I have combined these elements into an eighteen-minute performance.