↓
 
Home→Music→Album→12 Eludes

12 Eludes

Oscar van Dillen Posted on by

The title Elude is derived from the verb to elude = to avoid cunningly or adroitly (Penguin Reference 2001), which has as noun the word elusion. However, the composer chose to create for this music the new noun Elude, in assonance to Prelude and words like it, such as Postlude, Interlude etc. Therefore, as pre-lude means fore-play, inter-lude in-between-play, and post-lude means after-play, thus e-lude means outside-play. This music plays outside of and around tonal, modal and atonal systems, even outside a single style, and enters and leaves such musics at will, never completely bound to each set of formulas and conventions. It is precisely therefore that there are 12, each in its unique key signature, and not 24, as in keys (major and minor set apart), as is the case in similar keyboard collections by Bach, Chopin and Shostakovich. The 12 Eludes each have their own way of playing outside of mode and key, using a simple, technically mostly 2-voice based, setting.

The work was originally conceived for piano but should with some registration adaptations certainly allow for performance by various keyboard instruments too, such as organ and harpsichord, and beyond that for accordion, and marimba or vibraphone.

See OIJ Records for more information and links to online streaming platforms.

See also the Donemus highlighted article.

Track list

  1. I – All natural: time signature 2/2 (duration 2:59)
  2. II – One flat: time signature 6/8 (duration 2:17)
  3. III – Two flats: time signature 3/4 (duration 2:25)
  4. IV – Three flats: time signature 2/4 (duration 1:34)
  5. V – Four flats: time signature 3/2 (duration 4:37)
  6. VI – Five flats: time signature 7/4 (duration 5:36)
  7. VII – Six sharps: time signature 2/4 – theme (duration 1:29)
  8. VII – Six sharps: variation and theme da capo (duration 2:17)
  9. VIII – Five sharps: time signature 5/8 (duration 2:14)
  10. IX – Four sharps: time signature 8/8 – theme (duration 2:54)
  11. IX – Four sharps: first variation (duration 2:55)
  12. IX – Four sharps: second variation (duration 2:55)
  13. IX – Four sharps: third variation (duration 2:58)
  14. IX – Four sharps: theme da capo (duration 1:34)
  15. X – Three sharps: polymetric, time signatures 15/16 for lower, and upper part in 12/16 (duration 5:31)
  16. XI – Two sharps: time signature 6/4 (duration 4:32)
  17. XII – One sharp: alternating time signatures 3/4 and 4/4 (duration 2:48)

Total duration 51:35

Comments are closed.

↑