"Hacklebarney" Sonata
Bruce Lazarus
About this work:
brucelazarus@yahoo.com
performance - "Hacklebarney" Sonata - second mov't, Earthsong
My second piano sonata, labeled "Hacklebarney," was composed in 1984, a period when I was living near Harklebarney State Park, a wilder part of New Jersey not far from Pennsylvanian farmlands. The amusing word ha-ckle barn-ey was continually on my mind at that time. The word itself seemed to crackle and burst, and I wished to compose a work which would do the same.
Not only did I spend much time in the park, hiking its trails and gorges while searching inwardly for musical ideas, but I feasted on Hacklebarney apples, drank quarts of syrupy Hacklebarney cider, and conducted a Hacklebarney area library search for the meaning of that word (still a mystery).
Harklebarney Sonata was the first of three neo-classical piano sonatas I composed in the 1980s at the height of my interest in folk song, meditative new age music, and ragtime, and in seeking ways to integrate their rich thematic material. The first movement, in sonata-allegro form, juxtaposes an Indian folk melody (heard at the opening) with a ragtime tune (shortly later). The second movement, Earthsong, is peaceful, composed in the late winter, earth resting under snow. The lively final movement takes a variation of a 17th-century sea chantey as the basis for a free-form fugue.
Year composed: 1984
Duration: 00:12:00
Ensemble type: Keyboard:Piano
Instrumentation: 1 Piano