New American Romantics

 

(N/S R 1007)
Larry Bell – Piano Sonata
Larry Bell, piano

 

The Piano Sonata is a virtuosic and exciting four-movement composition. While each of the movements is self-contained and unique, each is also fully related to the remaining three. The composer compares them to “four different people with the same genes.”Written during the summer of 1990, each movement is dedicated to a pianist who has performed Bell’s music. These are: Penelope Roskell, Wu Han, Michael Dewart and Carmen Rodríquez-Peralta.The music was designed to be idiomatic for the piano. Traces of a single-theme sonata form are easily detected in he first movement. The meditative, song-like second movement consists of a simple theme followed by a few variations. The third movement is a jazzy parody of the seriousness found in the opening movement. The rhythmic excitement of the concluding fourth movement gives the impression of an exotic toccata inspired by an imaginary South American dance.