Dialogues

In Dialogues, I explore various types of musical conversations over the course of four movements. You will hear dialogues between musical characters and personalities and between my influences and myself. Before composing this piece, I spent months writing my doctoral dissertation on the topic of homage in the music of Hungarian composer György Kurtág. Dialogues is the first work I composed after finishing my dissertation and not surprisingly it is a dialogue with Kurtág’s music and the influence his music has had on me. The first movement, “Quarrel (Hommage à György Kurtág),” alludes to Kurtág’s composition “Quarrel” from his Játékok series. My movement builds on the basic gestures of Kurtág’s musical quarrel but adds a third element to the conversation—a musical object that the two characters argue over. The second movement, “An Encounter,” is a conversation between two characters and the pianist’s two hands. Over the course of the movement the two characters exchange ideas and motives. By the end, the characters have exchanged roles and switched hands, only to quickly return to their original places by the final measures. The third movement is, as its title suggests, a “Lament.” The final movement, “An Embrace (Hommage à György Kurtág),” alludes to Kurtág’s “Flowers we are… (embracing sounds)” for piano four-hands. Like Kurtág’s piece, the movement is a gesture of embrace, both physical and musical. Dialogues was composed for pianist Hui Wu.