Transforms for Piano (©2008) [26:30] In Memoriam Kenneth Gaburo

 

Dedicated to the power and light of Kenneth Gaburo’s teaching and friendship: Transforms for Piano, a near hour of music, time zone 5 in the twenty-four-hour complex, Symphonies of Sound, which is the first day of the 13-day galaxy of compositions comprising SPANDA.  My intention with Transforms was to present the entire range of late 20th century piano technique much like Bach did for the Baroque period with the Goldberg Variations and Beethoven did for the Classical period with the Diabelli Variations.  The musical materials are organized into thirty-four “transforms” of the initial expository material consisting of an eighty-eight-note pitch set with freely composed ornaments.  Each transform develops a different aspect of the opening material, but with less obvious connections to the listener than variation technique.
 
I began work on the opening material in February of 1975 in Tampa, Florida and the whole composition was finished on 1.26.95 in Mountaindale, New York.
 
A detailed description of the form, content and performance history of Transforms appears in the book The Soul of Music, available from Mizelle Music, 2008.  Please visit http://www.mizelle.org
 
Laurie Hudicek performed transforms 8, 12, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, and 28 on February 15, 2001 at Purchase College Conservatory and recorded the same set of Transforms on Feb. 16, 2001 at Dreamflower Studio in Bronxville, NY with engineer, Jeremy Tressler.