Jihye Chang: Boston Etudes

Yu-Hui Chang’s Mind Stretch is designed to be virtuosic both physically and mentally. The work opens with an oscillating, repeated rhythmic figure that is broken up by percussive strikes on the body of the keyboard, harp-like arpeggios in the high register, and tolling clusters. Chang builds micro-mechanisms in which contrasting timbres and gestures are fused together in triggered coordination.

Ketty Nez’ belletude features rapidly shifting harmonic areas and additive rhythms. The music is fluid and features a resonant pianistic use of the instrument, but retains a sense of forward drive despite its irregular rhythmic patterning.

Marti Epstein takes inspiration from bowed string instrument writing in bariolage, imitating the technique of articulating unison pitches or sets of pitches on adjacent strings. Here, Epstein activates the resonance of the piano by repeating unisons and octave displacements of pitches with the sustain pedal down, creating a gently enveloping halo of arpeggiation.

Fleetude is John McDonald’s meditation on those things that we run away from in life. The piece unfolds not unlike how an instrumentalist might practice several distinct challenging excerpts from their repertoire in a disjunct session (such as the suggested quote from Beethoven op. 2 no. 3). The work takes the form of a restless mind, posing not only the technical hurdles embedded within each musical fragment, but also asking the performer to switch expressive gears on a dime.

The first half of William David Cooper’s Idée fixe is the byproduct of a very rigorous and disciplined composition process in which the first seven notes of the work act as the generative seed for the development of the subsequent material. During the period of composition, Cooper suffered a concussion and upon returning to the work after recovering, decided to take a more intuitive approach to its completion. The result is a well balanced work in two parts, the first up to the climax, tightly managed while the second is more rhapsodic and free flowing.

Stratis Minakakis’ Lowell Études: Three Etchings on Solitude is the only multi-movement work in the collection. Inspired by Robert Lowell’s poetry, the Lowell Études finds musical resonance in the evocation of a unique kind of New England solitude contained in his verse. Debussy is another source of reference for the work, particularly in its interest in exploring resonance on the keyboard. The piece includes extended techniques such as the use of an e-bow to activate the vibration of a piano string, harmonics, and thumping the damper pedal as a percussive effect. Additionally, Minakakis mines the extreme registers of the piano for their unique timbral qualities. The final movement culminates in a charged passage that first combines and then pits those extreme registers against each other. The work ends starkly, with two pitches articulated by e-bows, one a steady drone and the other growing towards a cutoff at the peak of its swell.

Jihye Chang’s Boston Etudes project goes beyond simply presenting new pedagogical pieces, resulting in a range of significant new works for solo piano, from focused virtuosic showpieces to expansive multi-movement exploratory fantasies. Chang’s virtuosity and interpretive sensitivity is evident throughout, bringing to fruition these inventive new works by some of Boston’s finest musical conjurors.

– Dan Lippel