Chitpong

A study of Aeolian mode or 'natural minor key'. This mode lacks the leading tone on the seventh, therefore the rule of harmony has to be different from the usual minor key. Harmonic progressions in modal music tend to 'oscillate' near and around the tonic. This gives modes a unique soundscape which can be felt as archaic and unsophisticated, but when done carefully can be strangely charming.

A fugue in pentatonic scale. A test of how our Asian melodies and harmonic system could be put into a fugue framework. It is an Asian music with intricacies of melodic and harmonic relations not normally heard in traditional compositions.

The second episode of Preludes and Fugues Opus 2 starts with this prelude. This is my first 'real' prelude in term of style and form which are supposedly fluid and free. Actually, it is mainly a canvas of sound shapes and forms – a musical abstract that has no explicit content on the surface. This is also the first time that I use sustain pedal in a prelude.

Any new D minor fugue would be a lost cause because Bach wrote the whole Art of Fugue in D minor. After several iterations, this is my best attempt at this stoic and revered key. Almost everything is new. Here the subject is one of the longest that I could have conceived. There are a lot of functional dissonant intervals and chords that are results of a very close interwoven relation between the tonic and its dominant mode at occur almost at the same time. The musical phrases and idioms are less clearly positioned. The emphasis is on the fluidity – the rising and passing away of each sentences that create complex continuity. Lastly, the piano sound is also new. Here is a sample of a Fazioli with a ribbon mic. The sound is now very warm, sweet, and natural.

Some of the deepest and most spiritual classical music was written in D minor. There is nothing that can be compared to Bach's the Art of Fugue and Chaconne in Partita No.2 in D minor. My attempt is of course so feeble. It is rather a learning that I hope has succeeded to incorporate some dramatic elements that can be utilised in a serious and sombre style. This prelude was written tightly in compressed sonata form. The tempo is quite fast at 120 bpm. It stimulates expectation (sometimes deceptively) and imagination by a sparse use of series of sixteenth notes that at this tempo are so quick to be perceived as dashes of paint on an other wise solid and structured canvas.

Another fugue in major key that sounds mostly minor. This fugue continues on the same mood of its Prelude. The twin pieces in D major sounds like a grave procession to the inevitable, starting with a lighter and calmer prelude, then end with a more solid and predicative fugue. To me this is the idea of Prelude and Fugue – each one complements another, exposing and developing on the same theme.