Preview: Changes for twenty nifty fingers
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SKU: A0.890702
Composed by John Pitts. 20th Century. Score and parts. 13 pages. Intensely Pleasant Music #3424643. Published by Intensely Pleasant Music (A0.890702)."Changes for twenty nifty fingers" (1995) duet 3 minutes
This is the ‘simplest’ piece of the collection, and the oldest. I wrote it during my undergraduate years at Bristol University in response to a task set by my then composition tutor Wyndham Thomas. The given title "Changes" refers to the inspiration of the peeling of church bells – ringing the changes - where there is a simple ostinato pattern that undergoes a gradual metamorphosis. This piece starts with the skeleton of this short repeated phrase (in 14/8) which gradually fills out, and then moves through two enormously tricky sections of phasing - in which the two pianists have overlapping bars of different lengths (14 and 15 quavers). The duet finally builds to a dramatic climax in the third minute.
So, this is a short minimalist piece, ultimately with its technical roots in American minimalism, although the material was more immediately inspired by the piano style of my older brothers, in particular my eldest brother Antony’s piano solo piece Dance of the Redeemed Creation - the style of which can be traced in many of my piano compositions.
Changes has been widely performed by the Kiev Piano Duo (Dmytro Tavanets and Oleksandra Zaytseva), and a recording (performed by Steven Kings and John Pitts) is available on CD "7 Airs & Fantasias and other piano music" from www.johnpitts.co.uk - or as a download from Hyperion/1equalmusic:
www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_1EMIPM08
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