Work
Thirteen divisions on the Ground Bass of Pachelbel's Canon (solo piano)
by Michael Hannan (2009)
Score
Thirteen divisions on the Ground Bass of Pachelbel's Canon : for piano / Michael Hannan.
Library shelf no. 786.2/HAN 46 [Not for loan]
Work Overview
The origin of this piece can be traced back to my early years as
a music academic when I taught keyboard harmony and improvisation
at The University of Sydney. One of the skills in the curriculum
was improvising "divisions" on a ground bass. Here the term
division principally refers to different rhythmic groupings
although it can also refer to particular textural ideas such as
combining scale-based melodic motion with arpeggios.
The baseline of Pachelbel's Canon in D was one of the harmonic
structures employed for this improvisation task.
Later I wrote a rather irreverent electronic parody of
Pachelbel's Canon in D as a work for modern dance theatre (I
called it The Hannan Canon) but the recording of this work got
lost in a Lismore flood.
The popularity of Pachelbel's Canon in D was reinforced to me
throughout my time teaching composition at university. In almost
every semester there was a least one work presented in the
examination folios which had a clear reference to either the
melody or the chords of this evergreen.
Work Details
Year: 2009
Instrumentation: Piano.
Difficulty: Medium — AMEB Grade 5
First performance: by Fred Cole at Michael Hannan - retrospective (D Block Studio 129, Southern Cross University, Lismore campus) on 14 Nov 2019
Performances of this work
14 Nov 2019: at Michael Hannan - retrospective (D Block Studio 129, Southern Cross University, Lismore campus). Featuring Fred Cole.
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