Soliloquy is not only my first composition, but also my most dissonant. Written in the summer of 1958 at the Aspen Music Festival, it is a fantasy based on the minor second chords heard at the opening. The central portion becomes more excited and energetic, and the end, again more calm, is a variation of the beginning. Soliloquy is dedicated to my beloved piano teacher Bernhard Abramowitsch, but its composition was ironically prompted by my unhappiness in studying, that 1958 summer, under a far less congenial man. It is a fantasy based on the minor second chords heard at the opening. The central portion becomes more excited and virtuosic, and the end, again more calm, is a variation of the beginning.
"This work is coupled with his first work, Soliloquy (1958), which shows a young composer coming to grips with the predominant idiom of his age — the atonal, expressionstic, intense gesture."
"The Soliloquy is genius bursting full forth: it is almost difficult to believe that a work of such complexity could be a first anything."
Recordings (2)
Mandango: Complete Piano works of David Del Tredici, Vol. 2
2018, Albany Records (TROY1702)Works
Performers
- Marc Peloquin, piano
Piano Music by Del Tredici, Perle and Thorne
1992, New World RecordsWorks
Performers
- Michael Boriskin, Piano
Publications (1)
