Dreams of Love and Hate (And all the spaces in between) Twelve Dreams in Twelve-tone (After Boulez) Ian Percy (2016)

Percy, Ian (2016) Dreams of Love and Hate (And all the spaces in between) Twelve Dreams in Twelve-tone (After Boulez) Ian Percy (2016). [Composition]

Preview	Text (Original Music Score) Dreams of Love & Hate (Block Form) A4 Reference Score DrIPercy.pdf Download (2MB) | Preview
	Audio (Live Recording - Performance) Dreams of Love & Hate [Block] Live 241116 Sableviciute DrIPercy.mp3 Download (24MB)
Preview	Text (Original Music Score) Dreams of Love & Hate (Study Form) A4 Reference Score DrIPercy.pdf Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract

This version of Dreams of Love and Hate is a multiple movement work for solo piano. It takes its name in part from Liebesträume (Dreams of Love), a work composed by Franz Liszt (1811-1886) in 1850 that is also quoted (from a distance) within this composition.

In memory of Pierre Boulez (1925-2016), who passed away in January 2016, it was decided that this piece would be composed using the twelve-tone row from Boulez’s Douze Notations pour Piano (1945-1946) (published 1985) as the primary source material.

Although written when Boulez was twenty years old, Douze Notations (Twelve Notations) became a mainstay of the composer’s repertoire. The piece consists of twelve, twelve-bar movements, each composed with the same twelve-tone row in its many variable guises, transpositions, retrogrades and inversions.

As Liszt’s Liebesträume inspired the title for this piece, it was decided that a quotation from No.3 would be used. In a rather serendipitous coincidence, the three pitches of the chosen quote (C – Db – F) are present within the span of a trichord subset in the Boulez row. This allowed the quote to be sewn subtly within the natural fabric of the emerging movements.
Three versions of Dreams of Love and Hate exist; the first is a study score containing twelve movements (studies) juxtaposed in chronological order. The second is a reduced block-form performance score, where some of the more abstract studies have been omitted and the work is presented as (eight) individual ‘dreams’. The third (and longest) score includes an Introduction and Coda and sets the movements as ‘dream sequences’ within a more continual form, via links, chains and transitions.

Each of the movements is either 12, 24 or 36 bars long and all are composed from the Boulez 12-tone row in varying combinations of strict-order 12-tone, strict-order subset (PC set), unordered subsets juxtaposed in strict-order and unordered subsets.

Through exploring the internal subsets harmonically with predetermined decisions on interval-types, this work takes a less dissonant approach to the pitch organisation of the row than Boulez. The resultant primary chords provided internal pitch-schemes for the movements in microform and for the piece as a whole in macro form.

Recent works by this composer (Self-Perpetuum for chamber ensemble and Mystics for piano duo) have explored pitch-schemes modulating by a semi-tone. With the Boulez row starting in Ab Lydian (Ab – Bb – Eb – D) and ending in G Lydian (C# – G – F# – B), working with this row naturally continues this connection.

Item Type:	Composition
Additional Information and Comments:	All performers have agreed recordings can be used for dissemination of research and personal portfolio
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Creative Arts & Humanities > School of Creative and Performing Arts
Depositing User:	Ian Percy
Date Deposited:	12 Dec 2017 10:40
Last Modified:	12 Mar 2021 16:54
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/2293

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