sólarupprás

I'm back, with a new recording.

In 2007 I have written "Nocturne - intermezzo". Then, as I've been writing a new piece, I realised, that it was very similar to the previous one... So I decided to rename Nocturne and include it in the new piece.
That's how Dögun Triptych came into existence.

My main influence were Icelandic music and language. The piece consists of three parts: "flækjast" (journey), "bjarm" (glow) and "sólarupprás" (sunrise).


If nothing bad happens, I'll record the rest of Triptych along with 14 Visions réflexives and a few other pieces before the end of the year ;-)


Enjoy!

Kicior - Sólarupprás (Sunrise) ( 6:10 )

 

what an impressive beginning!

does Triptych mean "trilogy"?

PS: I've taken the liberty to remove the clipping of your recording, if you don't mind. But it changes the dynamic range... so maybe you still prefer it clipping. hehe

Kicior - Sólarupprás (Sunrise) ( 6:10 )

 

Yes, it's the same as Trilogy ;-)
I didn't know it was clipping... Thanks man!

 

Hi kschyschtoff,

I very much enjoyed listening to your composition. It reaffirms that tonal music is alive and well in the 21st Century and discredits the false notion that all creative ideas for tonal music were depleted during the Romantic Age. Nonsense! Keep on composing!

David

 

this is a delicate discussion...

Do you consider this piece tonal? I myself consider that a real "tonal" music is that one that can be easily explanned with "functions". So there are times that even Liszt is not tonal (mostly in miniatures), using scales and chords in a very free manner.

I'd not consider this piece tonal.
At least not whole tonal.

 

Yes, but by the same token what is atonal? There aren't very many pieces out there that i would call atonal. Most of Ornstein, Xenakis, Sorabji, Tibbs, Roslavets, Mosolov, Feinberg, etc. has very much of a tonal reference. I wouldn't call the Opus Clavicembalisticum, the Archmagicum, or any of Sorabjis Transcendental Etudes atonal. Without any tonal reference at all, music just wouldn't be music (some of Messaien is great, but other pieces just don't have it; It's as if the music isn't really paying homage to anything any more, or even evoking or referring to anything).

So, in my opinion, a heavily vast majority of music is very much tonal. I'm sorry if I've been cluttering this thread, please tell me if I have.

Great composition and performance, by the way. Way to stick up for the Icelandic Traditionals!

 

A discussion about a piece being tonal or not is pretty futile IMO. There are a zillion shades of tonality.

Anyway this piece sounds good and pretty tonal to me. I did not like the two huge silences after 4 minutes or so. The music does not seem to recover from them.... just as it got going so nicely just before that. It's very well played. Sound is good except I seem to hear quite some hiss in the beginning.

 

yeah, there are different "shades" of tonality, as Chris said.
this is an interesting discussion. I think the problem is that we don't have classified these different systems, so one may consider most of them tonal, while other most of them atonal. I just said the Sunrise could be "not tonal". I didn't say it was atonal. (though "a" means negation... Stravinkys himself was against the word "atonal", which he said should be antitonal. And Janacek used to say that there's no music without key, including Schoenberg's atonality.)

what makes me consider that Sorabji is not tonal, is the following: before tonality, there was modal music. And "modal" music is not tonal. These are different systems.

in tonality, we have one more important "region": the tonic. all other "regions" are submitted to this tonic through a hierarchic system. this does not happen to the Greek modes, whose relations among are pretty much more relaxed. Debussy has lot of modal music (mainly his preludes), and I think every Bartok piece is modal (though in a different way... not Greek modes, and the mode changes through the piece).

if we try to explain these pieces through tonality, we would find functions like "dominant's dominant's dominant minor", full of dissonances. these chords are too "far" from the tonic region, so I don't consider it an acceptable explanation. it seems that the tonal system doesn't explain the music harmony any more.

Scriabin's late music has much of those "suspended chords", which relax the functions of the chords, relaxing the tonality. there are keys in his music, no doubt... but I wouldn't say it's tonal (for the same reason that modal music is not tonal).

it's a matter of words

 

What I meant was that most music, it has some reference to a tonal base. It may shift constantly, but it is there, and is easy to spot for people who are well studied in music. Feinberg may seem like a jungle of notes to some folks, but then I listen to him and see fantastic references to Bach, Mozart, mainly Scriabin, and a lot of hidden rhythmic devices and inner voicing.

So you can have tonality that is either shifty, loosely referred to, or hidden in plain sight. But you do have a point: it would be nice if we just categorized it all. Now that you put it that way, I feel more inclined to follows your ideals on the matter.

Now, do we just call Messaien anti-tonal and leave it at that?

 

yes, there's much tonal reference, I agree.

I really don't know what Stravinsky meant for "anti-tonal" (I read it translated to Portuguese... maybe this was a limitation of the translation.)
and I really don't know Messiaen's music (though I should, because Austbo is one of my favorite pianists, and he recorded all his piano music...)

so I really don't know.
hehe

 

Do we put the original or the edited version on the site ?

 

I believe the edited version would be better ;-) thanks!

 

Very nice music, reminds me a bit to debussy. I can hear a lot of different colours in your playing, and no slips, that's great!

 

This one's up at last (the version editid by Felipe). Please check if all is in order.

 

I´m glad to hear something new from you. Though I liked the three Visions you recorded better. They are somehow darker.

This piece is somehow confusing, because the style seems to change a lot. The beginning is very much like a debussy, but it then shortly shifts to a darker Dutilleux-like, and most of the rest of the piece is quite late-romantic. Especially when there are typical romantic phrases.

Well, I´m looking forward to hearing more visions then. I really liked those three you posted, I actually tried to play them, but I fear my hands were too small for some of the chords...

Greetings from Vienna