Gene Pritsker: 2 Singles

Composed by Gene Pritsker in 1998 for four classical guitars, Two Dances from Satan's Great Ball 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.

Composed in 1992 by Gene Pritsker, Still Laughing, Even Louder is based on the music from an earlier orchestral piece entitled, "And Laugh Even Louder".  After being denied a performance, Gene wrote an answer to his disappointment with this classical guitar trio.  The piece uses a simple pentatonic melody and develops it with various extended techniques.  The piece ends with the melody set to a choral and is played non-concurrently and at different tempi creating an obscure and dreamy atmosphere.