ČMRLJ (BUMBLEBEE) (2011)

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