Robert Fleisher’s Gig Harbor (2010) a retirement gift for my NIU colleague Harold Kafer and his wife Cecelia, is titled for the lovely Pacific Northwest town they now call home. Melodic and harmonic content derives from the names Cecelia, Harold, Kafer, DeKalb, and Gig Harbor. The closing quotation from Debussy’s La Mer combines two pentatonic subsets: the “DeKalb” motive in the bass, answered by the “Harold” motive mentioned above. The Six Little Piano Pieces were composed under the influence of Schoenberg’s Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke, Op. 19 forMartin Jones, mostly in 2018. (Each piece here references one of Schoenberg’s.) No. 1 has a new middle section derived from the opening phrase and No. 2 begins with a brief gesture from pieces in Op. 19. Much of no. 1 and most of no. 6 date from the early 1970s. No. 3 comprises multiple encryptions of the name ‘Martin Jones.’ No. 4 combines material from a mass Jones composed as a student and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. No. 5 recalls a familiar tune known as “Westminster Chimes.” (An interior phrase recalls another Schoenberg solo piano work.) No. 6 is largely unchanged. In recognition of Schoenberg’s lifelong triskaideka-phobia, this movement’s 13 measures served as a model for each piece in the set.
