Red on Black

Music tells a story, here is the one told by "Red on Black".

A sharp bang! The fragment of a theme strains to rise, but quickly stops... the echo of it captured by the pedal.

Again it jumps forth only to end just as suddenly as it began, leaving only an echo.

From those first opening notes the tone is set for the whole piece, both musically and visually, with the powerful fourths and the crossing of the hands.

The theme tries again, straining upwards, but fails and cascades down, hand over hand, to the bottom register, as if to some dark pit.

But from that pit a pulse begins, life takes hold and the theme begins. It is split between the two hands, hesitant and wobbly, but it grows, gets bolder and bolder, growling and clawing its way up.

The vibrant and strong sonorities of fourths bounce between the two hands of the pianist as the theme grows and develops. The crossing of the hands is an important visual motif for the piece – the hands stabbing at the keys acting as the perfect visual companion to the piano’s savage sounds.

The piece carries on, unwavering. The register between the leaping hands grows, the sound deepens, gets wilder, the notes get faster and the fourths get broken up into flurries of triplets as the left hand leaps to strike the bottom keys.

And then abruptly, it stops. But only for a moment...

A savage waltz bursts out from the low register, driving the theme into frenzy. The hands leap, the chords are large, it is a change from the furious hand-crossing of the opening, but no respite.

The wild waltz rises, rises and then holds while from below notes gush up like geysers, rising and holding for a moment, sparkling fiercely in the high register.

But what goes up must come down.

A furious cadenza explodes. The hands hammer wildly, smashing the theme into shards. The notes fall deeper and deeper only to surge up like some tidal wave. From it the theme returns at breakneck speed, rushing onwards like some crazed bull towards it own, sudden end.

A concert is something you see as much as something you hear. The hands of the musician flying over his instrument help make an exhilarating experience for the audience.

Red on Black was conceived as piece of music where the performance creates a visual impact that enhances the musical one.

Listen to Red on Black.

Download a score sample.
This is an excerpt from the actual PDF file you would recive upon purchase. This allows you to see the high quality of the engraving.