Four Piano Blues
Four Piano Blues | |
---|---|
by Aaron Copland | |
Aaron Copland in 1962 | |
Form | Blues |
Composed | 1926 – 1948 : |
Published | 1949 : |
Movements | 4 |
Scoring | Piano |
Four Piano Blues is a collection of pieces for piano by American composer Aaron Copland. The collection was composed between 1926 and 1948.
Composition
The set of short blues for piano is the assembling of two pieces from the '20s and two more from the '40s. The first two pieces were written in 1926, as separate movements of an incomplete suite for piano, entitled Five Sentimental Melodies. This work was largely drawn from other melodies extracted from Copland's Piano Concerto. One of the pieces was initially intended to become a part of another set of two blues. However, Copland published the first blues (entitled Blues No. 1) and left Blues No. 2 unpublished. The other piece was originally entitled Hommage à Milhaud, which he revised again in 1934, and was the basis for the Dove Dance in Copland's Hear Ye! Hear Ye!.[1]
The other two pieces were composed in 1947 and 1948, and were, in turn, the basis for some melodies of Copland's
Structure
The four-movement set takes around 8 to 9 minutes to perform and is scored for solo piano. The movement titles are extracted from their tempo markings. The complete list of pieces is as follows:
- Freely Poetic
- Soft and Languid
- Muted and Sensuous
- With Bounce
Each different piece has its own dedicatee. The first piece is dedicated to
References
- ^ a b Archives, New York Philharmonic Leon Levy Digital (24 November 2016). "New York Philharmonic Program (ID: 8910), 1999 Nov 24". archives.nyphil.org. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
- ^ "Aaron Copland - 4 Piano Blues". www.boosey.com. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
- ^ "Piano Blues (4) | Details | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 29 January 2017.
- ^ "John Kirkpatrick | Biography, Albums, Streaming Links | AllMusic". AllMusic.