Besetzung: Piano
Duration: ca. 5‘
Publisher: Schott Music
WP: 19.6.2012, New York, The Julliard’s School Paul Hall
Michael Brown, piano
Introduction
Dob és tánc (Drum and Dance) is the title of a famous poem by the Hungarian writer Sándor Weöres. The beginning of this poem („csönd béke“) with its elastic rhythm was the initial inspiration for this short piano piece which explores the potential of a simple element in 70 variations, resulting in what could be described as a ‚monomanic Polka‘. While the rhythm remains unchanged, except for shifting accentuation, combination and overlapping of the initial pattern, the whole register of the piano is gradually being explored, starting from percussive sounds and a tritone in the middle register up to the limits of what one pianist is able to play. The references towards music history – from Satie’s Vexations via Strawinsky up to Ligeti’s Etudes with their technique of exaggeration starting from simple elements and Bernd Alois Zimmermanns Requiem für einen jungen Dichter (where the Weöres poem is quoted) – are manifold, and quite a few among them lead to composers published by Schott, to whose publisher, Peter Hanser-Strecker, this piece is dedicated on the occasion of his 70th birthday.