Julia Sherriff

These are of a similar format to the “Ostinato: Violin & Piano” pieces but, as the name suggests, are limited only to the piano. I wanted to play with the interesting textural effects that can be created by combining overlapping piano lines, although in all honesty I am not sure how practical it would ever be to perform them! But in the virtual world the number of available pianos is not a limiting factor, and I think the effects are interesting.

My first foray into layering multiple piano parts. The “opening” referred to in the title is more of a time-stamp than anything else: this was written in the few days around the first major easing of lockdown in May 2021.

The clue is in the name! In the days leading up to this I had been playing chamber music containing a lot of arpeggios, so perhaps that was the inspiration.

This didn’t start life as a mazurka when I picked out the initial theme on the piano: I’m not really sure how it ended up as one! But I wanted to experiment with the whole tone scale, again inspired by music I had been playing (this time orchestral).

This one has a few rhythmic issues and slowly turns into a bit of a nightmarish musical box, but there you go… As before, the title is just a weather-stamp – it was pouring down outside, again!