Piano Quintet

Notes

Like the majority of my works, whether orchestral or chamber, this Piano Quintet is in one single movement; but unlike many it has no extra-musical assocications, either in poetic atmosphere, structure, or thematic material. What it does is take two types of material – motoric and active, slow and meditative – and alternate, vary and develop them, while alluding to all the main elements of traditional sonata and symphonic structures.

Thus the meditative material can suggest both a sonata-form second subject and a compact slow movement, while the active material can generate the broad sense of a sonata opening movement as well as a scherzando capriciousness. The overall structure can be summarised as follows: Exposition – pounding rhythms, bell-like chords, running passages and eventually a little two-part Invention; Interlude 1 – a short, initial view of the meditative, lyrical material; Development- built upon the exposition material; Interlude 2 – a much expanded treatment of 1; Recapitulation with Development- further working of the exposition’s material; Coda/Apotheosis – using all previous themes,with the bell-like chords prominent.