Interlude Piano

[Mirtha Shikles]

SuperSoundtrack for the Piano Pronto: Interlude method book by Jennifer Eklund. Includes orchestrated backing tracks with and without the student parts as well as recordings of the student solos with the teacher duet parts. Mp3 and MIDI files included with purchase.

A tender story of winter becoming spring by Ryan Chesser. Perfect for students to learn how to be expressive and evoke emotion using dynamics and tempo changes. This multi-level pack includes two different versions for early intermediates and intermediates.

Wayfaring Stranger is a sophisticated violin solo for intermediate players of all ages. Includes a lush teacher accompaniment making this piece well suited for recitals and other performance opportunities.

Roker Park Rag is a jaunty, early intermediate piano solo by British composer Joanne Griffiths. It is a fun character piece with chromaticism, staccato octave jumps, and lots of opportunity for comedic expression.

Sky Castles songbook features eleven charming contemporary lyrical solos for intermediates and beyond. With its harmonic elegance this collection will be a staple that students of all ages can grow with as they progress through lessons.

Lisa Witthas been teaching piano for more than 20 years and in that time has helped hundreds of students learn to play the songs they love. Lisa received classical piano training through the Royal Conservatory of Music, but she has since embraced popular music and playing by ear in order to accompany herself and others. Learn more about Lisa.

Angela Lau is a Hong Kong pianist pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). In this interview, we discuss her latest performing project promoting music written by Hong Kong living composers.

Sure, I started playing the piano at age 5 1/2, it was the first instrument I learned to play. When I went to primary school, our school back then promoted each student to learn an orchestral instrument and my mom enrolled me to play the violin. Throughout my pre-college years, I was introduced to the guitar, mandolin, and clarinet as well. As you can imagine, I was constantly surrounded by music as I grew up. The most memorable moment was playing in a folk band named Vanilla with my friends. Our band mainly performed folk songs from America and Taiwan. It was the moment I realized the joy of performing in an ensemble setting.

At that time, I was asked about music that is unique to my culture and heritage. I began to wonder what the characteristics of Hong Kong music are and why I never got to explore my musical roots. This was when I decided to call Hong Kong composer Kwan Leung Ling for a commission work incorporating Cantonese folk elements. I wanted to learn a Hong Kong piano work that is close to my heart and best represents my upbringing. However, this idea of commissioning a work by a Hong Kong composer grew bigger in scale. Eventually, I determined it would be more meaningful to play a full recital showcasing composers from various generations either born or educated in Hong Kong.

This is a very interesting question and I trust that everyone has their own view. From my experience being brought up in Hong Kong, the city is a melting pot of Eastern and Western cultures, in a sense which tradition and modernism blend in harmoniously. The five composers included in my project spent their time in both cultures and studying Western classical music. Their compositional interests span from philosophy, religion to the arts.

The cycle consists of sixteen sonatas (thirteen of which are cast in binary form, the remaining three in ternary form) and four more freely structured interludes. The aim of the pieces is to express the eight permanent emotions of the rasa Indian tradition. In Sonatas and Interludes, Cage elevated his technique of rhythmic proportions to a new level of complexity.[2] In each sonata a short sequence of natural numbers and fractions defines the structure of the work and that of its parts, informing structures as localized as individual melodic lines.[5]

Cage underwent an artistic crisis in the early 1940s.[6] His compositions were rarely accepted by the public,[7] and he grew more and more disillusioned with the idea of art as communication. He later gave an account of the reasons: "Frequently I misunderstood what another composer was saying simply because I had little understanding of his language. And I found other people misunderstanding what I myself was saying when I was saying something pointed and direct".[8] At the beginning of 1946, Cage met Gita Sarabhai, an Indian musician who came to the United States concerned about Western influence on the music of her country. Sarabhai wanted to spend several months in the US, studying Western music. She took lessons in counterpoint and contemporary music with Cage, who offered to teach her for free if she taught him about Indian music in return.[9] Sarabhai agreed and through her Cage became acquainted with Indian music and philosophy. The purpose of music, according to Sarabhai's teacher in India, was "to sober and quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences",[8][10] and this definition became one of the cornerstones of Cage's view on music and art in general.[citation needed]

Cage started working on the cycle in February 1946, while living in New York City. The idea of a collection of short pieces was apparently prompted by the poet Edwin Denby, who had remarked that short pieces "can have in them just as much as long pieces can".[16] The choice of materials and the technique of piano preparation in Sonatas and Interludes were largely dependent on improvisation: Cage later wrote that the cycle was composed "by playing the piano, listening to differences [and] making a choice".[17] On several accounts he offered a poetic metaphor for this process, comparing it with collecting shells while walking along a beach.[14][18] Work on the project was interrupted in early 1947, when Cage made a break to compose The Seasons, a ballet in one act also inspired by ideas from Indian philosophy. Immediately after The Seasons Cage returned to Sonatas and Interludes, and by March 1948 it was completed.[citation needed]

Cage dedicated Sonatas and Interludes to Maro Ajemian, a pianist and friend. Ajemian performed the work many times since 1949, including one of the first performances of the complete cycle on January 12, 1949, in Carnegie Hall. On many other occasions in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Cage performed it himself. Critical reaction was uneven,[19] but mostly positive,[20] and the success of Sonatas and Interludes led to a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation, which Cage received in 1949, allowing him to make a six-month trip to Europe. There he met Olivier Messiaen, who helped organize a performance of the work for his students in Paris on June 7, 1949; and he befriended Pierre Boulez, who became an early admirer of the work and wrote a lecture about it for the June 17, 1949 performance at the salon of Suzanne Tzenas in Paris.[21] While still living in Paris, Cage began writing String Quartet in Four Parts, yet another work influenced by Indian philosophy.[citation needed]

In the text accompanying the first recording of Sonatas and Interludes, Cage specifically stated that the use of preparations is not a criticism of the instrument, but a simple practical measure.[14] Cage began composing for prepared piano in 1940, when he wrote a piece called Bacchanale for a dance by Syvilla Fort, and by 1946 had already composed a large number of works for the instrument. However, in Sonatas and Interludes the preparation is very complex, more so than in any of the earlier pieces.[1] Forty-five notes are prepared, mostly using screws and various types of bolts, but also with fifteen pieces of rubber, four pieces of plastic, several nuts and one eraser.[22] It takes about two or three hours to prepare a piano for performance. Despite the detailed instructions, any preparation is bound to be different from any other, and Cage himself suggested that there is no strict plan to adhere to: "if you enjoy playing the Sonatas and Interludes then do it so that it seems right to you".[14]

Cage had frequently used the nested proportions technique and its variations before, most notably in First Construction (in Metal) (1939), which was the first piece to use it,[29] and numerous dance-related works for prepared piano. In Sonatas and Interludes, however, the proportions are more complex, partly because fractions are used.[2][28] In his 1949 lecture on Sonatas and Interludes Pierre Boulez specifically emphasized the connection between tradition and innovation in Sonatas and Interludes: "The structure of these sonatas brings together a pre-Classical structure and a rhythmic structure which belong to two entirely different worlds."[21]

Sonatas and Interludes has been recorded many times, both in its complete form and in parts. This list is organized chronologically and presents only the complete recordings. Years of recording are given, not years of release. Catalogue numbers are indicated for the latest available CD versions. For the complete discography with reissues and partial recordings listed, see the link to the John Cage database below.

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Jane Campion's 1993 film The Piano, with music by Michael Nyman, was one of the most acclaimed films of the early 1990s, but it quickly became controversial because of its depiction of the mute heroine Ada (played by Holly Hunter). Ada is a pianist, and mostly expresses herself through music: Nyman's score thus becomes a central feature of the film's narrative, although perhaps not always in ways that Campion may have intended.

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