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About the Score

Commissioned by the Community Music School of Collegeville, in honor of its Thirtieth Anniversary. Premiered there by Milena Urban, 23 April 2022. The theme is “Children at Play,” No. 1 from Vol. 1 of For Children (1 908-09) by B la Bart k. In our discussions about what this piece might be, Milena Urban suggested referring in some way to music that beginning piano students, such as some attending the Community Music School, might know.

Almost immediately I considered “Children at Play,” which I learned when my piano teachers Roy and Norma Brunner were valiantly attempting to make a musician out of someone who wanted only to be a composer. I’ve loved the piece since then, and hear something of its spirit in everything Bartók ever wrote.

Despite their educational inspiration, these 30 variations are not a graded technique in piano playing but are assembled in an order that seemed to make sense musically and dramatically, specifically, in six groups of five. They are to be played without break, although there’s no reason individual ones couldn’t be performed separately on programs in any order.

Starting with the theme’s key of C Major, the variations progressively add sharps, two variations in each key signature, except for No. 1 5, the only one in seven sharps. That halfway point then turns the corner to seven flats for No. 1 6. Flats are then subtracted every two variations, returning to C Major for the final two. Why most all of them are in a major key, I cannot say (I kept waiting for a greater number of other modes to arrive, to no avail). As it turns out, four are in minor, and four, modal.

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