About the Piece

MOVEMENT TITLES
I.  Contemplations

II.  Intensity

III.  The Wheel Goes Round

​

Fantasy for piano is divided into three movements. The first, Contemplations, is about the unfolding of one five pitch harmony. Plucking of the strings with both the fingertip and fingernail add timbral interest to the harmony and also help to bring out more important pitches that are considered to be a melodic line. A hesitant melody in the upper register is eventually heard in counterpoint and than washed away.  Intensity is brief, with abrupt gestures that move through all registers of the piano.  In this section John Corigliano’s Étude Fantasy is quoted, leading to a bizarre march. The Wheel Goes Round derives its material from jazz saxophonist Chris Potter’s The Wheel.  The melody unfolds throughout the movement, first in small fragments that are part of the opening vamp, next in lyrical melodic lines in the slower middle section and lastly as a driving bass line in the last section.