Gary Nash

Valse and Intermezzo

Classical/Chamber music • 1999

Valse and Intermezzo

Sheet music file
12.00 USD

Seller Gary Nash

PDF, 7.87 Mb ID: SM-000290432 Upload date: 17 Jun 2017

Instrumentation	Piano, Alto Saxophone
Scored for	Solo, Accompanying piano
Type of score	Score for two performers, Solo part
Key	G minor
Publisher	Gary Nash
Difficulty	Difficult
Duration	13'0

VALSE AND INTERMEZZO (1999), composed for saxophonist Lawrence Gwozdz, saxophone professor at University of Southern Mississippi was premiered by Gwozdz on February 1, 2000 at Mississippi Valley State University on a guest artist recital featuring Lawrence Gwozdz. This work is the seventh in a series of works composed by Nash for solo instrument and piano as they all feature similar formal structures as well as motivic development and other musical events.

The first of these works was DEFORMATION AND TRANQUILITY (1987) for B-flat clarinet and piano. At that time, Nash described DEFORMATION AND TRANQUILITY as a deformed way of treating themes and motives with a contrasting tranquil section in the middle followed by a return of the deformation section with a clarinet cadenza connecting the middle and returning sections.

The next group of compositions include DEFORMATION II (1988) for trombone and piano, DEFORMATION III (1991) for jazz drumset and mallet percussion ensemble, DEFORMATION IV (1992) for tuba and piano and DEFORMATION V (1993) for bassoon and piano. Shortly after the premiere performance of DEFORMATION V, Nash realized that he needed to be more careful when creating titles for his works, mostly at the advice of his mentors. As a result, he chose to refrain from using “Deformation” and instead manufacture more imaginative and descriptive titles but at the same time continue to use similar formal structures for his solo instrument and piano compositions. The next composition he wrote under this refined premise was FOR TWO (1993) for violin and piano and that brings us to VALSE AND INTERMEZZO (1999) for alto saxophone and piano.

VALSE AND INTERMEZZO has an ABA form with a fast and fiery triple meter A section and a contrasting slow, quadruple meter B section. The main motive is a highly syncopated, quasi chromatic fast sixteenth note passage in the alto saxophone over a three note ostinato passage in the piano. The B section is approached by way of stretching the triple meter section to quadruple meter by adding one beat and then cutting that tempo in half. The B section ends with a piano cadenza followed by and juxtaposed with a saxophone cadenza and then proceeding to the A’ section.

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