Peggy Glanville-Hicks: Sonata for Piano and Percussion (1952) - Movement 2

Abstract

"This work was especially composed for a concert organised by Glanville-Hicks at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1952. The program was designed to focus on the important role of percussion in contemporary music. In her notes to the original recording in the 'Modern American Music' Series, Glanville-Hicks explained the rationale behind the work: My Sonata was designed as an example of organic tonal percussion writing, and it employed the instrumental unit which I consider a basic one. I have used the same instrumental unit in most of my later orchestral scores also, writing it on the lowest half dozen lines of the page, as I feel it is the real bass of the composition, and thus of the orchestra-the final missing choir necessary for modem composition, where rhythm and its natural orchestration are structural rather than decorative, as in classic or romantic music. The work is in three movements. The outer movements are influenced by African-music; according to the composer the themes are from the Watusi people, and piano and xylophone are prominent. The inner, slow movement forms a dramatic contrast, with its sustained texture and more lyrical atmosphere." -- Deborah Crisp