Opus number: 37
Title: Blues Theme with Variations
Instrumentation: two pianos
Date written: 1992, Boston
Length: eight minutes
Premiere performance: Larry Bell and Michael Dewart, pianists, 1992
Important subsequent performances: Moscow Autumn 1995, Elena Ivania and Alissa Smith, pianists; New England Conservatory Preparatory Division students; Bell and Carmen Rodriquez-Peralta, April 16, 1992
Recordings: Larry Bell and Michael Dewart, pianists, WGBH-FM radio; tape at Boston Conservatory; tape of Bell, Rodriquez-Peralta 1992 performance at Boston Conservatory
Program notes: “Blues Theme with Variations” is an arrangement of the second movement of Bell’s Piano Concerto. He performed this pieces many times with his duo-piano partner, Michael Dewart. The work is a set of variations on an original theme. The theme’s major-minor third interplay suggests a blues inflection.
