sábado, 11 de marzo de 2017

Rapsy Littlehands, and one thing about Rapsy 18

With so many children prodigies on the piano, many of them (or their parents or teachers) asked me if there is a Rapsodia Nusantara, without being less virtuosic, that is playable by small hands. That means there are no chords that span wider than a 7th, since playing octaves is still quite difficult for them. I indeed have thought about it for a long time. It's not easy to make, since we usually need those octaves in the climactic sections. This is a unique period in classical music (and mostly cases in Asian countries), where children already acquired the pianistic techniques of the adults, but of course physically they are still, well, children. And virtuosic works for piano usually need big hands that can strech the interval of an octave or more. ............................................................................................................................................ Since I was stuck (already about a year or more) with my Second Balinese Mosquito Dance, I thought that it might be a material to be integrated into a Rapsy. And voila, I was right. This new Rapsy has a Toccata mood. It is also a break from the previous Rapsies which turn to be more and more heavily contrapuntal. Through the years I've grown an affinity with the passacaglia form, and both Rapsy 17 and 18 have passacaglias (it started already with Rapsy 10). I still don't give a number to this Rapsodia, which is based on a central-Javanese folktune "Padhang Wulan". ............................................................................................................................................ One thing I forgot in my preface for Rapsy 18 is about the beginning of the piece. Those tremoli are inspired by gangsing (or "gasing" according to some provinces in Indonesia), a toy made of wood or bamboo which I couldn't find the English translation to it. During my childhood, I dreamed about making music out of gangsing of different sizes. Gangsing turns with a gyroscopic law, and a small hole on it makes the wind blow inside and sounds into a certain pitch. Apparently the oldest gangsing in Indonesia is in Riau, since before the Dutch colonization, and therefore this Rapsy (which is based on a folktune from Riau province) is appropriate to be opened with a gangsing-effect prelude.