Catalogue
Capriccio on the Anniversary of a Beloved Master (2000)
Programme Note available | View performance history...
Work Details
Category: keyboard
Duration: 5
Instrumentation: Pf
SMC Holdings
Programme Note
This Capriccio, written in April 2000 to mark the 250th anniversary of the death of J. S. Bach, uses, as its model, Bach''s
own ''Capriccio on the Departure of his Beloved Brother''. The framework is exactly the same, namely 6 movements each with a descriptive title, and all of these movements have the same speed indications as the Bach model. Each movement starts with an anagram of the four famous notes which form the great man''s signature (B flat, A, C, B natural) but this musical signature is never stated in the recognised form and only in the final 3 movements are these four-note tags developed as thematic ideas. The central slow movement (''A time for reflection'') is, like the equivalent movement in Bach''s work, a forty-eight bar passacaglia based on a row which starts with the notes C, B natural, A, B flat, and all the melodic shapes in this movement are echoes of the original. The titles of the six linked movements are :
1. One of his admirers opens his tribute
2. He continues with a fantasia
3. A time for reflection
4. Four notes gather to salute the master
5. Aria based on four notes
6. Toccata based on four notes
