Ten Conceits
Allen Brings
About this work:
The most important skill a young composer needs to learn is how to extend a promising musical idea in time. Conjuring the initial gesture is never difficult for a gifted young composer. After having mastered this technique, however, even the experienced composer may find it difficult to conjure an initial gesture that pleads for little or no extension or to close convincingly a piece in one minute or less. Ten Conceits is my response to this challenge.
I chose the word "conceit," which as a poetic device can mean "an elaborate, fanciful metaphor, especially of a strained or far-fetched nature," because of what I thought to be the character of each piece. In yet another sense, in the order in which they are to be played with even the durations of the pauses between pieces prescribed, these "conceits" could be likened to a bouquet of flowers, especially in cultures where arranging flowers has been cultivated as an art-form for centuries.
Ten Conceits was composed in the spring of 2001 and given its first performance by Genevieve Chinn at a concert presented by the northeast chapter of The College Music Society at Berklee College in Boston on April 7, 2002.
Score available from Mira Music Associates. Contact: miramusic@aol.com
Recorded on Capstone Records CPS-8732
Version: solo piano
Year composed: 2001
Duration: 00:08:03
Ensemble type: Keyboard:Piano
Instrumentation: ,1 Piano soloist(s)