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richard danielpour: metamorphosis (piano concerto no. 1) (1990) Metamorphosis, a three-movement concerto for piano and chamber orchestra,
was composed at various intervals over a two-year period (1988-1990).
A number of sketches for it appeared in my work as early as the summer
of 1987. Those sketches and several pages of orchestration were transferred
and transformed into what became a piano quintet written for the Chamber
Music Society of Lincoln Center and premiered by the Emerson Quartet and
Ken Noda in January of 1989 at Lincoln Center. A joint commission from
the New York Chamber Symphony and the Hoboken Chamber Orchestra allowed
me to work on the realization of my original vision for the thirty-minute
piece Richard Danielpour ADDITIONAL NOTES: Richard Danielpour's Metamorphosis for piano and orchestra transcends the confines of a concerto. It is the journey of one mortal being (the piano) grappling with his own demons and life's outer forces (the orchestra) and finding redemption not through a naÔve affirmation of a higher power but an experience of light after the realization of darkness within. Metamorphosis is in three movements. Movement one "Annunciation," plunges immediately into manic cross-rhythms and a relentless undercurrent of sixteenth-notes against which a motive of two eighth-note octaves is announced in the piano and orchestra fortissimo. This idea is to become almost a stigmata throughout the first two movements. There are only two isolated moments in which themes evoking the feminine "anima" break through the masculine struggle. The first appears after the exposition in which a primal-sounding bass syncopation in the piano (in ascending perfect-fifth intervals) is transformed into a gentle, child-like pleading (marked dolce and cantando). The second comes before the final denouement, the same pleading, in inverted form, to be dismissed yet again by the "stigmata" motive and the chaos around it. All forces are pulled into an end on a choked, accented F-sharp unison. Movement two, "Atonement," had been figuratively described by the composer as an "at-one-ment." The orchestra, thought still very much the outward "elements," or even gods, begins in a dirge-like meditation after which the piano embarks on an inward search not unlike that of the Orpheus figure in the second movement of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. As the piano's questioning grows more urgent, the confrontation of truth is met head-on with the return of the "stigmata" motive into which the orchestra blasts repeated violent sixteenths grouped in six. In its aftermath, flickering keyboard figurations dart around ethereal, drawn-out string glissandi and sustained notes. The urgent sextuplets reappear, to be replaced by the presence of a celestial new theme emanating from both extremes of the piano; but there is one last fight. The piano "stigmata" reappears, inverted, only to give way with a series of descending complex chords. "Atonement" ends in an extended prayer, piano and orchestra joined in peaceful communion. The composer's epigram to this movement reads: "In Memory of a Child . . .." Movement three "Apotheosis," is a primal dance of euphoria, an inevitable release of the preceding trials. Without delay, the orchestra charges into the principal motive, a four-note syncopation, which is then seized by the piano and tossed back and forth between both in a rite of chameleon-like rhythmic and thematic disguises. It dissipates into a scherzando; suddenly the same motive is heard in its "feminine" shape; a tender waltz. But not for long. The ensuing section becomes a central purging of whatever madness remains; the motive is heard every which way, the most striking being a series of string ostinati against which the piano veers wildly from one end of the keyboard to the other like a malfunctioning clock. The reappearance of the scherzando element, then the feminine (the waltz more expansive and reflective than before) leads into the final countdown. A new theme of off-accented eighths in perfect fifth intervals (marked con energia and "in double time") signifies the approach of the end. Before the coda, the "waltz" returns for one last reminder, its lightness perhaps a farewell to the darkness of the first two movements. In the coda itself, the initial motive is overtaken by the piano's alternating thirds, sixths, and octaves which rush exuberantly to the work's C major conclusion.
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