Music for Solemn Moments: Piano: Instrumental Album

SKU: PR.11441825S

UPC: 680160643745. 9 x 12 inches.

In 2011, Barbara Garrop, my mother, commissioned me to write a piano trio in memory of Norman Garrop, my father, who passed away about thirty years ago. When I started brainstorming about topics for the piece, I found it difficult to recall many moments of my early life involving my father. Too many years had passed, and the memories that I could summon were of achild looking up to her father, not an adult relating to an equal. However, while collecting stories of my father from various family members, along with discovering a number of objects that had once belonged to him and that I had stored away in boxes decades ago, I began to realize that this piece wasn't so much about my father as it was about my re-discovering the man that he was: a loving husband and dad who cared deeply about his family and his passions (which included bike riding, collecting coins, strumming our guitar, playing baseball, watching football games, entertaining people, helping to run local theater and puppet productions, and carving objects out of wook); an accountant who dreamed of a better future: a treasurer of our local synagogue; an early advocate for computers (we owned an Apple II+); and a pranster with a great sense of humor. Ultimately, I decided to musically tell the story of my search for these memories. In the first movement (Without), a child calls out in a sing-song voice, searching for her lost parent. This search intesifies over the course of the movement through a series of themes, including a stepping motif in which a two-note progression steadily climbs higher, a pseudo-jewish folksong, and a passionate longing theme. The child's search becomes increasingly intense throughout the movement, calling out fervently and repeatedly to the parent; the movement ends in a moment of great tnesion and uncertainty. The second movment (Within) quietly opens with the lost parent finally answering, represented by a solo cello; the child (now personified by the violin) has found the parent within the sanctuary of her own heart. This movement highlights the joy and solemnity of this beautiful discovery. -S.G.

SKU: HL.4002119

UPC: 073999263251. 11x17 inches.

This large-scale three-movement work, commissioned by Ray Cramer and the Indiana University Wind Ensemble, embodies the transformation of silence into sound. The opening movement is sparse, utilizing mallet percussion, harp, and piano to create a floating sense of timelessness. Featuring extensive solo flute, this floating texture gradually builds over several minutes, ultimately launching itself into a grandiose, warm, harmonically consonant blanket of sound. The second movement continues the focus on solo flute, and again opens slowly, gradually gaining momentum, but at a faster pace than in the first movement. The music spirals upward and outward, but instead of reaching a plateau, winds itself out and comes to a grinding halt in the upper range of the ensemble. Five brief, solemn chords conclude the movement, which immediately erupts into Movement III, music of unceasing, unsettling, motion, propelled by a driving ostinato which is repeatedly interrupted by bittersweet moments of lyricism, all the while pushing toward an unforgiving climax. The movements may also be performed separately. There is no explicit narrative to the piece, though many particular elements do have personal quasi-biographical significance. Ultimately, this is music of both personal and musical transformation.

NOTE: This work is available as a rental item directly from the composer. For details, e-mail rental@stevenbryant.com. The score is also available separately for purchase from Hal Leonard.