Instrumental Solo Composition of the Day, Installment 6:
"Cycles"
for
Piano Solo
(1984)
"Cycles" is the most difficult-to-perform, abstract piece of music in my catalog of works. It was completed in 1983 during which time I was studying music composition with the late great composer, Arthur Berger (1912–2003), working towards my Masters in Music Composition at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts ("NEC").
Mr. Berger once called "Cycles" "a strange piece of music," and admittedly it is, but not without many concept-related reasons. The listener must resign his or her self to the terse musical language of ever-transposing 0-1-3-1 interalic tetrachords presented in unrelenting mini-phrases of music during which musical contours expand and contracts widely, while dynamics intensify do the same thing. Those phrases and their composite rhythms are inspired by—but are not intended to be construed in any way to be—Indian Raga rhythms; I was listening to a lot of them at the time.
Rather, they are my attempt at synthesizing those elements into my then musical style, which was not incidentally influenced by the interval-based, spatially-obsessed music of my composition teacher. Arthur Berger asked me to endeavor not to form tonal triads, to avoid melodic linearity and to embrace spatial angularity of pitches.
Rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic palindromes appear everywhere, both on the microcosmic and macrocosmic compositional levels. On top of all of this, the musical gestures of the opening and closing sections are inspired by those in Brahms' "Intermezzo" in B-flat Minor, Opus 117. Yes, it is a strange piece of music, but I still like it, even after all of these years.
The 1983 version received its world premiere performance by the late great Boston-based pianist, Michael Dewart, on March 8th of that year in Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Follow the next URL to hear that performance on my website.
"Cycles" was revised substantially in 1984; the form of the piece was fundamentally altered; entire sections of music shifted positions. My pianist champion that year was NEC's own Laura Bell, who performed "Cycles" twice in Brown Hall at NEC:
once on April 4th; link to performance:
and again on April 17th; link to performance.
What I recall most was Laura's devotion to the piece; she was emotional about the entire experience of working together on such a technically demanding work. So was I.
Follow the next URL to watch a scrolling score music video of "Cycles" on YouTube accompanied by a synthesized soundtrack.
The score for "Cycles" is available for licensing from me, and for sale from Sheet Music Plus. Follow the next URL to visit the distributor's product page for this title.
Follow the next URL to here to view a watermarked PDF score of "Cycles" on my website.
Follow the next URL hear a synthesized rendition of "Cycles" on my website.
I hope you find "Cycles" strange. :-) Thank you for your time and attention.
Stanley M. Hoffman, PhD
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