ČMRLJ (BUMBLEBEE) (2011)

ČMRLJ (BUMBLEBEE) (2011)

for piano

instrumentation: pno
duration: 3 minutes
première: June 6, 2011, Centro San Fedele Milano, Italy
Maria Grazia Bellocchio – piano

ČMRLJ (BUMBLEBEE)

score preview

ČMRLJ (BUMBLEBEE)

(full recording)

Reiko Manabe – piano

Additional performances

June 3, 2015, Radio Slovenia, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Marija Skender – piano
May 31, 2015, Rae Castle, Slovenia
Marija Skender – piano

VIDEO

ČMRLJ (BUMBLEBEE): Full recording
Maria Grazia Bellocchio – piano
Published on DVD – Beethoven & Risonanze by Centro San Fedele, Milano
ČMRLJ (BUMBLEBEE): Full recording
Maria Grazia Bellocchio – piano
Project for Centro San Fedele Milano

ABOUT

The opening of this piece invites associations with Rimsky-Korsakov’s perpetuum mobile “Flight of the Bumblebee”. It even begins with a rapid pattern circling in close semitones. The similarities end there, however, and ČMRLJ is in fact more closely associated with a work from the piano’s own repertoire, Beethoven’s Six Bagatelles op. 126, and is intended for performance either on its own or as an interlude between the fourth and fifth of these Bagatelles.

ČMRLJ is predominantly a very quiet work, murmuring and tinkling in veiled tones, with just a very few sudden, loud outbursts. Alongside the bustling semiquaver passages, it also contains rapid successions of staccato cords, disjointed rhythmic passages, atmospheric arpeggiandi and the frequent use of cluster chords, which on closer inspection are actually quite varied in structure. In addition to the clusters and close chromatic melodies, the piece contains a proliferation of chords stacked in fourths, and arpeggio figures rising and falling in perfect fourths and fifths.

Alwyn Tomas Westbrooke

The opening of this piece invites associations with Rimsky-Korsakov’s perpetuum mobile “Flight of the Bumblebee”. It even begins with a rapid pattern circling in close semitones. The similarities end there, however, and ČMRLJ is in fact more closely associated with a work from the piano’s own repertoire, Beethoven’s Six Bagatelles op. 126, and is intended for performance either on its own or as an interlude between the fourth and fifth of these Bagatelles.

ČMRLJ is predominantly a very quiet work, murmuring and tinkling in veiled tones, with just a very few sudden, loud outbursts. Alongside the bustling semiquaver passages, it also contains rapid successions of staccato cords, disjointed rhythmic passages, atmospheric arpeggiandi and the frequent use of cluster chords, which on closer inspection are actually quite varied in structure. In addition to the clusters and close chromatic melodies, the piece contains a proliferation of chords stacked in fourths, and arpeggio figures rising and falling in perfect fourths and fifths.

Alwyn Tomas Westbrooke

Beethoven & Risonanze (2016)

Published by San Fedele Musica

Maria Grazia Bellocchio

recorded pieces:
ČMRLJ