Chrysalis

This is the new one (for piano) mentioned in the preceding pre-posting post. It's about patience and change. The changes happen slowly at first, but both the magnitude and rate of change increase as it proceeds. It's in 7/4 at a slow tempo, and is in E-flat major (including a little visit to C minor) most of the way through, gradually moving in stages from mostly half and quarter notes, to mostly quarters and eighths, then 16ths with a few eighths, and just after the 32nd notes start, it shifts to F major (via B-flat major), by which point it hardly resembles the opening ideas at all, just as the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis. Finally, at the very end, the rhythm slows back down, and the final three notes echo the first three.

What I didn't really notice until it was almost done were the similarities between this and both Memorandum (minus the encapsulated fugue) and Introit (minus the strings and the symmetrical form). It also includes a brief suggestion of a slightly out-of-kilter waltz, a la Perenepsis #5 (it might finally be time to go back and re-finish #4), and relies heavily on fourths and fifths, a common feature among many of my works.

So, here it is, my final posting of the year, barring an unanticipated lack of distractions (such as yesterday's nearly successful attempt to go up a down escalator that was much higher than the ones I'm used to; doing this right after a big lunch of Italian food was probably not the best idea I've had lately, but if I'm pretty sure that with a slightly quicker pace at the start, I would've beaten it). As mentioned in my previous post, I'll try to do better next year (in terms of both postings and that escalator).