Pepijn Streng - Het land rust onder de hemel (Fatou Sourang, piano)

(reuploaded with better audio and engraving) Ever since I started studying in Birmingham, I feel my music has actually become more Dutch. This was the first piece I finished there, although it was initially meant to be the third movement of a larger piece called "Grande Sonate Japonaise". For that piece, I've written the second movement and the beginning of the first, but not the finale and it stands unfinished. The original idea for this piece was to have something with multiple layers that move in time in different ways. There's the bottom-of-the-keyboard B-flat, which is completely static, unchanging. Then there's the melody, which moves in a cyclical way, always returning back to the root in the end. The fast, high figures move within themselves, but are essentially still static, and the high, erratic voice (which becomes a very low voice at the end) moves constantly, never repeating itself, yet still does not show meaningful development. In a way, these layers all show different kinds of internal movement within something static. The piece is played by Fatou Sourang. Her fine touch is very fit to the nuanced, soft dynamics of the piece - the difference between p and pp is made very clear. She uses some form of rubato, which makes the piece a little more evocative. It's a mistake to think that irregular rhythms demand a metronomic approach in all cases - sometimes the diversity in rhythm actually invites a performer to play more freely. Even though the piece seems easy at first - I thought I would be able to play it myself - it is, in fact, very tricky not to lose focus at any point because it's just so long and so slow. Fatou did an impressive job in keeping the structure of the whole together.

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