The 24 pieces contained in my Short Stories for piano were composed between
2013-2018. I had originally grouped the pieces into a collection titled The Well-Blended
Primer (subsequently withdrawn). I substantially revised, in some cases reconceived, the
entire collection in 2017-18. Because my original intention was to include pieces that
exhibited pitch centricity around each of the 24 possible major and minor keys, the
earlier title, refering to J. S. Bach's 2-volume Das wohltemperierte Klavier, seemed to fit.
As in Bach's work, some of the pieces in my collection exhibited a pronounced
contrapuntal attitude. During the development of the work I had planned to alternate
prelude and fugue-like pieces, but the end result was more of a hybrid collection that
could be thought of as being influenced by Bach, but even more so by Chopin's group
of 24 one-of-each-key Preludes, and systematically key-centered contrapuntal collections
by Hindemith and Shostakovich. I was also influenced by shorter character pieces by
composers such as Schumann, Debussy and Prokofiev that exhibit a more lyrical,
narrative nature, to name only a few composers.
In Short Stories, my plan to alternate preludes and fugues, or at least to systematically
vary the degree of contrapuntal density, isn't readily perceived. There is certainly
enforced variety in pitch centricity, but this feature isn't arranged symmetrically, and
there is a range of tonal, modal, chromatic and atonal languages explored in the
collection. Stylistically, there are many influences to be heard here. In fact, some of the
titles of the individual pieces refer to other piano composers (for example Tea with
Claude and Maurice, Czerny's Id, George Sand's Dream and Joplin's Tick). The name of
the present work, Short Stories, describes these modest narratives better than the
original title and the revised collection is less abstract than the 2013 version. From a
pianist's standpoint, I would venture to say, these reconceived pieces are more
concerned with color, register and voicings particular to the instrument. Some of the
more extensive revisions I made to the original pieces were stylistic ones involving
changes in the harmonic language and articulation. In other cases I fleshed out sketch-
like miniatures into more substantially developed portraits, or conversely, I deleted
what I thought might be considered to be extraneous material that obscured the
abbreviated sketch-like nature of the narration.
John Carbon
