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Gibbons, Gongs & Gamelan

This work unites several ideas touching upon Orlando Gibbons’ (1583-1625) fragmented keyboard work The woods so wilde.  Although the structuring of this new piece embodies some rigorous workings, conjoining early music with Fractal geometry, its overall temperament is somewhat spontaneous, evoking in my mind playful -if not fantastical- imagery.  Gibbons here as nimble primates playing through episodes whose sounds (because of the music’s recursive growth) are so closely allied to gamelan (and non-Western) textures.  They also exist, not in a jungle, but a temperate fantastic forest, woods so wilde.  This work, for me, also captures a celebratory tone in that I composed it during the Holiday week of late December…

2 Dances from Satan's Great Ball

Composed by Gene Pritsker in 1998 for four classical guitars, this work takes its title from Mikhail Bulgakov's great novel The Master and Margarita.  Both movements are inspired by various dances and ostinati.  Using the guitar's percussive qualities, the melodic material is developed with various rhythmical elements and gets treated with Brazilian rhythms, Stravinsky-like ostinati, rock grooves, and African syncopations and rhythms, etc.  The Devil loves the guitar as four of them bang away for his great ball.