Amen: Quintet Fantasy on the Plagal Cadence (2017)

Mixed Chamber – 20 min.
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Video (Scrolling Score + Performance)

Video (Scrolling Score)

Audio

Score (Free Download)

Program Note

Amen: Quintet Fantasy on the Plagal Cadence could be described as a twenty minute musical set-up for the last gesture, a simple two-chord progression played by piano alone. In the real world, this plagal cadence is most familiarly heard as an “Amen” tacked on as a coda to a hymn, but in this fantasy it is the final destination of a diverse array of musical ideas, all of which in varying degrees of clarity suggest the featured subdominant-tonic relationship (think of an F major triad followed by C major).

Listeners looking for a guide to the structure of the work will appreciate knowing that the piece is divided into two equal halves by a piano cadenza of cascading chords — 10:40 (These times correspond to the You Tube video)
The second half of the piece is in two large sections: a fast, energetic toccata – 11:40
followed by a lyric section that turns the plagal cadence into a jazz-styled tune – 16:52
The first half of the piece is more episodic. The swirl of plagal progressions that begins the pieces returns again and again to link together a panoply of strongly charactered sections, each with its own distinctive reflections on the harmonic, melodic, coloristic and even rhythmic implications of the plagal cadence phenomenon.

Don Freund’s Amen: Quintet Fantasy on the Plagal Cadence was commissioned by Jorge Muñiz and Ensemble/CONCEPT 21.