Preludes for Orchestra (2005)

Orchestra – 12 min.

[2fl+picc.2ob.2cl+bcl.1asax.2bn. / 2tpt.4hn.2tbn+btbn.1tba. / 2perc. / hrp. / str.]

Video

Audio

Score (Free Download)

Program Note

Don Freund’s Preludes for Orchestra (2005) is an orchestral realization of three of the composer’s piano preludes, an on-going series of annual short piano pieces, begun in 1990.

Tune and a Half (Piano Prelude ’95) alternates between a relatively extended playful, charming tune and a more mysterious, exotic, two-bar mantra.

Second-hand Emotion (Piano Prelude ’04) features the orchestra’s “left hand” playing a line which is “intensely lyric, impassioned,” while the remainder of the orchestra (“right hand”) remains pure, sweet, eternal, and absolutely even.

Rough, ornery (Piano Prelude ’96) focuses on a boogie-woogie moto perpetuo bass line, whose roughness is amplified by a series of disjunct textural variations before suddenly melting into a 4-against-3 walking bass line counterpointed by a distant “Baroque trumpet” riff.