Opus number: 30
Title: The Parable of the Parabola
Instrumentation: solo piano
Date written: 1988, American Academy in Rome
Length: five minutes
Premiere performance: Larry Bell, pianist, November 10, 1988, The Boston Conservatory
Important subsequent performances: Michael Lewin, pianist, Boston Conservatory, September 14, 1990;Larry Bell, pianist, Boston Conservatory, April 13, 1989, April 10, 1998, Boston Conservatory
Recordings: tape at Boston Conservatory library of world premiere, tapes two other Bell performances, and tape of Lewin performance
Program notes: “The Parable of the Parabola” was written in 1988 at the American Academy in Rome. It is a short, one-movement piece dedicated to the memory of my teacher, Vincent Persichetti. The title, an homage to the Persichetti Parables, is also a double entendre: “parabola” is Italian for “parable.” The form of the music also suggests the basic shape of a parabola, an arch that begins as a jazzy scherzo, becomes a song without words, and concludes, palindromic-fashion, with a retrograde return of the jazzy section.
The work was premiered by Larry Bell at a joint faculty concert (with Mary Saunders, soprano) in memory ofVincent Persichetti. The concert included Persichetti’s Parable for Piano, op. 34, Twelfth Piano Sonata (Mirror Sonata), op. 145, ten songs from Harmonium, and Bell’s Four Sacred Songs.
