In the middle of the piece there is a direct quote from one of the oldest chants, the Pange Lingua, which dates from the 6th or 7th century AD. Those little flurries of grace notes are the Chopin influence. But I think it is safe to say that this is my music and it uses the capacities of the guitar in a unique way.
One of the oddest things about the piece is the way I have notated it. It looks really strange because I have used whole notes for most of the pitches. What I wanted was a piece with no pulse. In the 17th century lutenists had a clever way of writing pieces like this, called unmeasured preludes. Since in lute tablature the notes and the rhythms are notated independently. If you don't want to specify any rhythms, just don't write them down. But modern notation, and especially music software, doesn't allow this. So I wrote everything (except the grace notes) in whole notes. That's why you get odd time signatures like 5/1 or 16/1. Those aren't measures, they are phrases! Anyway, I think the effect of the piece justifies the odd notation.
6 comments:
I enjoyed it,Bryan!
Thanks, Christine!!
Hi Bryan! I'm starting to learn this piece from the score you gave me a while back. Is there a particular fingering you used/prefer for the grace notes? I know that it says you want them to ring over.
That's great, Matthew! Are you looking at the other movements as well? Sorry to take so long getting back to you. My scores are in a bit of a disorder right now and to get those fingerings for you I have to either find the copy that I was playing from, or redo the fingerings on a new score. It might take me a few days to get to that!
I learned the Air sometime back and I looked at the Finale not too long ago, but I need to get it back into shape! I hoping to eventually learn the entire suite!
I will look for those fingerings today! And if you are planning a public concert of the suite, please let me know when and where.
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