Login

Enter your username and password

Forgotten your username or password?

Your Shopping Cart

There are no items in your shopping cart.

Work

As it were (solo piano)

by Elliott Gyger (2011)

Score Sample

View a sample of the score of this work

Audio Sample

Performance by Ian Holtham from the CD Inspirations

Inspirations

$23.00

Add to cart

CD

Inspirations / Ian Holtham, piano.

Library shelf no. CD 2508 [Available for loan]

As it were

$25.45

Add to cart

Score

As it were / Elliott Gyger.

Library shelf no. 786.2/GYG 2 [Available for loan]

Work Overview

As it were is a meditation on the distinctive atmosphere of the two Beethoven piano sonatas in the key of A flat, Op. 26 and Op. 110, which share a tone of intimacy and confident serenity.

My starting point was 35 chords drawn from across the two sonatas, representing a common ground between Beethoven's language and my own. In their original contexts, each of these chords is a fleeting dissonance, a moment of resonant tension within a phrase; but here they become harmonic events in their own right, finding new combinations and successions which follow a logic completely different to that of tonal resolution. The piece nonetheless retains strong Beethovenian fingerprints in the sonorities of the chords, which are never transposed or re-voiced. Also borrowed from Beethoven are the first few notes of the subject from Op. 110's closing fugue, a distinctive pattern of rising fourths alternating with falling thirds.


My somewhat enigmatic title, as well as suggesting a whimsical flight of fancy, contains a pun: "As" is the German name for the note A flat - although the nature of my chosen materials falls more "around" the key of A flat than actually "in" it.

Work Details

Year: 2011

Instrumentation: Piano.

Duration: 6 min.

Difficulty: Advanced

First performance: by Ian Holtham — 22 May 11. Trinity College Chapel, University of Melbourne

Performances of this work

17 Nov 2016: at Beethoven's 111 & Gyger (Melbourne Recital Centre, Primrose Potter Salon). Featuring Laurence Matheson.

22 May 11: Trinity College Chapel, University of Melbourne. Featuring Ian Holtham.

User reviews

Be the first to share your thoughts, opinions and insights about this work.

To post a comment please login.