Piccarda on the Moon

by Juha T. Koskinen

Description

During the last years I have written some pieces inspired by Dante’s 'Divine Comedy' such as 'Il Messo celeste' (2003) for organ and 'Sogni di Dante' (2004) for seven players; 'Piccarda on the Moon' (2005) for piano continues my Dante cycle.

One of the main ideas I found from the second and third Cantos of 'Paradiso' is the idea of reflection. I conceive the two movements of the piece as reflecting each other. Also both movements contain many possibilities of reflection, for example between different materials. In the first movement this happens mainly in vertical sense, and in the second mainly in horizontal.

The first movement uses the historical time as a reflecting space quoting some earlier pieces of mine – my first opera 'The Witch Company' (1996) and 'Narciso' (1997) for orchestra – as well as some earlier composers (Ockeghem, Liszt).

The second movement deals more with stylistic allusions.

I wrote Piccarda on the Moon for Jonathan Powell.© Juha T. Koskinen

Helsinki, 13th February 2005

Instrumentation

pno

Category

Works for Solo Instrument

Premiere

Jonathan Powell, London, 16 February 2005.

Commisioned by / dedications

Written for Jonathan Powell.

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Archive number

MF18607

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