Piano - Grade 4
SKU:
HL.233151
Solo
Piano Part. Composed
by Poul Ruders. Music
Sales America. Classical.
Softcover. Composed 2017.
20 pages. Edition Wilhelm
Hansen #WH32201C.
Published by Edition
Wilhelm Hansen
(HL.233151).
ISBN
9788759886427. 10.0x14.5
inches.
English.
Piano solo
part for Paganini
Variations - Piano
Concerto No.3 by Poul
Ruders (2014). Score
available: WH32201
Programme note: In 1999
my friend, American
guitar virtuoso David
Starobin, wanted me to
write a concerto for
guitar and orchestra. It
quickly dawned on me,
that this commission
presented a golden
opportunity to contribute
to the time-honoured
tradition of composing a
series of variations on
Nicolo Paganini's famous
24th Caprice for violin
solo, a work which itself
is a set of variations.
The 16 bar (with the
first 4 bars repeated)
theme is not particularly
sophisticated or
intricate, but its
inherent simplicity and
logic just grow on you,
almost to the point
ofdistraction - and the
secret behind it being
hauled through the
wringer by composers as
disparate as Liszt,
Brahms, Rachmaninoff and
Lutoslawski is perhaps
found in its - what I'll
call, with a quick
nervous look over my
shoulder: brilliant
banality. You can do
anything with that tune,
it'll always be
recognizable and just
there, however much you
maul it. The piece
(subtitled Guitar
Concerto no 2) was
written pretty quickly,
premiered and
subsequently recorded for
Bridge Records with David
and the Odense Symphony
Orchestra conducted by
Jan Wagner, and everybody
was happy. But the story
didn't end there, and it
must be the ultimate
proof of the durability
of the theme, not to
mention the flexibility
and far-sightedness of
David Starobin , when he
14 years later suggested
why not transcribe the
solo part for piano?. The
idea appealed to me
immediately. One thing
was clear from the
beginning: the new
version could in no way
sound like a
transcription. My aim was
to end up with a
solo-part sounding like
were it the one-and-only,
the real thing, if you
like. The orchestral
score remains exactly the
same in both cases. Both
versions, the two
Paganini Variations, are
comparable to a set of
twins, not quite
identical, but almost.
And both each others's
equal. Poul Ruders.
