Iconography

16 min.

May 9, 2014
Bargemusic, Brooklyn, New York
Tanya Bannister, piano

Commissioned by Tanya Bannister

One of the great lures of late Beethoven is the sudden open space, the markers and boundaries of individual phrases falling away, amalgamating at the edges into entire gnarled passages. The open spaces can be almost frozen, as in the Variations of his last sonata, Opus 111; or inexorably progressing, as in the Heiliger Dankgesang of his string quartet, Opus 132; or almost endlessly flowing, as in the Opus 110 Sonata. Here, contrary motion that falls away from entire passages, leaving euphonious swaths of parallel tenths in which you can almost swim. In Iconography there is a superficial concern with some of the materials of Beethoven’s Opus 110 Sonata, how parallel and contrary motions are deployed, and with the larger structure is organized. But on a more basic level, I have been concerned with finding my open space, and redistributing the kinds of materials that I usually put in my own music.

“More promising was Harold Meltzer’s Iconography, which mused on some of the qualities of the sonata’s first two movements. The first movement recalled the Handel suite, too, with its many trills and upward flourishes, while the second movement, recalling Beethoven’s scherzo, was diverting in its metrical shifts and sudden accents.”

• May 9, 2014: Tanya Bannister, piano, Bargemusic, Brooklyn, New York
• May 18, 2014: Tanya Bannister, piano, Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
• July 29, 2015: Tanya Bannister, piano, Cambridge Summer Music Festival, Cambridge University, England