Carter Pann

Piano Keyboard.
Carter Pann writes, “the piece might have been titled Three Improvisations, but there is an expressive inertia baked in to these works which makes them truer as rhapsodies. This description tells us much about the work, whose movements are an enterprising tango, a bombastic central movement with virtuosic thrust, and “a and a hymn heard from afar without any sense of marked time.”
Carter Pann writes, “the piece might have been titled Three Improvisations, but there is an expressive inertia baked in to these works which makes them truer as rhapsodies. This description tells us much about the work, whose movements are an enterprising tango, a bombastic central movement with virtuosic thrust, and “a and a hymn heard from afar without any sense of marked time.”
Three Rhapsodies was commissioned by the American Composers Forum with complete support from the Thelma E. Hunter Fund. The premiere performance took place in Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York by pianist Marina Lomazov.As with all of my piano works, this was very much an at-the-piano compositional experience. As a pianist I cannot imagine writing a solo work away from the instrument (though at times that would be quite convenient).The whole work explores a palette of impassioned emotions – sometimes veiled, sometimes emboldened, or even outrageous at times. There are technical freedoms in each movement, allowing the pianist to stretch their interpretive inclinations to great lengths. In this way the piece might have been titled Three Improvisations, but there is an expressive inertia baked in to these works which make them truer as rhapsodies.The first movement is a tango with real wanderlust. The second reminds me of Rachmaninoff’s Polka de W.R. in its bombast, but also Chopin’s sixteenth prelude with its sheer virtuosic thrust. The third is a hymn heard from afar with no rhythmic drive, only sheened sonority.

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