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- Cheryl Frances-Hoad
Stolen Rhythm (2009)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Programme Note
Song Without Words was commissioned by BBC Radio 3 and premiered by Andrew Zolinsky on the radio in 2009.
I was delighted to be asked to write this piece for Matthew Schellhorn, particularly as in 2009 I'd written a short piano piece for Mendelssohn's anniversary also. When I am asked to write pieces inspired by certain composers, it always makes me realise how little of their music I actually really know, so I promptly embarked on a Haydn Piano Sonata-playing marathon, which I enjoyed immensely. I wanted to write something fast and jolly, since Mendelssohn's tribute had been slow and (hopefully) rather beautiful. I became particularly obsessed with the third movement of Haydn's Sonata in E flat major (Hoboken XVI:45): the way it continually moves forward with a boundless energy and wit still thrills me. It seemed to me that it was the rhythmic content of the movement that gave it these properties, so I decided to shamelessly steal the rhythm hook line and sinker, and simply put my notes to it. Save for a few 11/8 bars (where I've removed one semiquaver from the usual 3/4 bar), the rhythmic content of this piece is entirely Haydn's, running from beginning to end exactly as his sonata movement does. I then played with various transmutations of the notes B, A, D, D, G (generating lots of different sets of pitches by inverting and transposing them etc.) to get the harmonic and melodic content.
© Cheryl Frances-Hoad, 2015
I was delighted to be asked to write this piece for Matthew Schellhorn, particularly as in 2009 I'd written a short piano piece for Mendelssohn's anniversary also. When I am asked to write pieces inspired by certain composers, it always makes me realise how little of their music I actually really know, so I promptly embarked on a Haydn Piano Sonata-playing marathon, which I enjoyed immensely. I wanted to write something fast and jolly, since Mendelssohn's tribute had been slow and (hopefully) rather beautiful. I became particularly obsessed with the third movement of Haydn's Sonata in E flat major (Hoboken XVI:45): the way it continually moves forward with a boundless energy and wit still thrills me. It seemed to me that it was the rhythmic content of the movement that gave it these properties, so I decided to shamelessly steal the rhythm hook line and sinker, and simply put my notes to it. Save for a few 11/8 bars (where I've removed one semiquaver from the usual 3/4 bar), the rhythmic content of this piece is entirely Haydn's, running from beginning to end exactly as his sonata movement does. I then played with various transmutations of the notes B, A, D, D, G (generating lots of different sets of pitches by inverting and transposing them etc.) to get the harmonic and melodic content.
© Cheryl Frances-Hoad, 2015