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Variations on I Got Rhythm (2006)
Variations on I Got Rhythm approach Gershwin’s jazz idiom from a more modernistic standpoint. Serial techniques are combined with jazz to give a richly chromatic, often dissonant, texture while retaining the syncopations and improvisatory gestures of jazz. To a certain extent the work is a parody of Gershwin’s own Variations on I Got Rhythm, and many references can be heard in the first few variations. For example, the opening is a twelve-tone version of the clarinet solo that opens the Gershwin original, and Gershwin’s Chinese variation is briefly imitated in the second variation. Both works incorporate a more romantic Slow Waltz variation. The variations conclude with a virtuosic jazz fugue. Click here for my recording of this piece. |
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Prelude After Chopin (2010) Prelude After Scriabin (2009) When performing and academic responsibilities catch up to me, I satisfy my “compositional itch” by writing short pieces based on simple challenges—composed much in the same vein (but at a far more basic level) as David Rakowski’s magnificent Piano Etudes. The Prelude After Chopin is my response to the first Chopin Etude, written while trying to come to grips with the complete Chopin Etudes which I first performed a few weeks later. The Prelude After Scriabin is based on pitch sets that do not contain the interval of a fifth (or a fourth). The link with Scriabin is a particularly ironic afterthought. |
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Was It Really A Dream? (2011) Was It Really A Dream? grew out of an idea I had for a toccata where notes sustained with the middle pedal would give a enigmatic backdrop to the busy rhythmic motion in the foreground. As the piece grew, the toccata element seemed to fade into an agreeable “crunching of leaves” that might accompany an autumn stroll, and the repetitive melodic gestures gained urgency. The title refers to the blend of tension and abstraction that one experiences upon awakening from an unusually dramatic dream. |
 All compositions on this page are the original work of Edward Neeman and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. |
