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PnOVA American Piano Series Volume 4

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The American Piano Music Series Volume 4 features new music composed by Tim Melbinger, Ingrid Arauco and Kent Holliday.

Tim Melbinger wrote Twelve Preludes for piano throughout the first half of 2011 at my home in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. "I played the premiere at Penn State Altoona later that year. The pieces are short – it lasts 24 minutes total, although movements may be excerpted for performance. The title reflects my models, Chopin, Debussy and Martino. I kept a running list of descriptions of the music I was writing so I would avoid repetition and keep things fresh. Most of the movements explore one mood. The music is a little more transparent than I had been writing for several years before, and the textures somewhat lighter, as I had hoped to say more with less. The death of Milton Babbitt while writing prompted me to write a movement (#7) in his memory using his pitch organization ideas."

The Sonata by Ingrid Arauco is in four movements, with the first movement establishing a fundamental harmonic tension between two identical chord structures positioned a half-step apart, which introduced and developed at the outset, create friction and energy. The friction is never truly resolved in favor of either chord; rather, these sonorities are balanced in various ways. The momentum generated by the first movement is played out first as a quick, thinly-drawn scherzo, then as a slow, lyrical set of variations, and finally as a fugue, in which variants of the two opening harmonies of the work appear linearly and continue jostling for dominance, though in a generally more light-hearted manner than at the beginning of the piece. The entire sonata is approximately nineteen minutes in duration.

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Incantations from the Popol Vuh (Holliday) draws on the legendary history of the creation of the world - The Popol Vuh, or Mayan Council Book, which relates the daily life of the Maya in their natural surroundings and the underworld journey that awaits them in death. The text abounds in fables involving animals, demons, and feats of magic. In this composition, the composer attempted to suggest the titanic struggles of the Hero Twins, Xblanque and Hunapu as they out-trick and wrestle with the forces of evil. The three worlds, Lower, Middle, and Upper are represented by corresponding registers of the keyboard, with the twins ascending at the end to become the sun and the moon.

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