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Solo
Piano
- Program Notes
- Reflets sur l’Eau Noire (‘Reflections on Dark Water’) is a single-movement work for solo piano in four connected sections: Éveil (Awakening), Développement (Deepening), Climax, and Retrait (Withdrawal). Cast in a broad arch form, the piece opens in stillness and, after considerable turbulence, returns to it. The harmonic language is built entirely from five chromatic-mediant progressions, each chosen for its particular quality of color and shadow. Ab functions as the gravitational center throughout — the ‘dark water’ of the title — appearing in four of the five sequences and always arriving with a sense of inevitability. The opening gesture, a tolling C that rises through Eb and Ab before resolving an octave higher, establishes the harmonic world from which the entire piece unfolds. The Maestoso marking frames a work that asks for great freedom of time. Section I unfolds in flowing arpeggios over wide, resonant bass chords; Section II builds intensity through a sixteenth-note development over a low C pedal; the Climax states all five progressions with octave-doubled melody and thunderous bass octaves. The final section strips everything away until a single low C remains, marked morendo — held until inaudible.