Note
Shy and Mighty is a full-length album of music for two pianos. It began as a kind of personal compositional notebook back in 2005, and after a gestation period, emerged transformed into a big butterfly, I mean senior thesis project. Since then, it’s gone on to become my début album, which I recorded with David Kaplan and was released by Nonesuch in 2010.
- Antennae A simple tripartite piece which sounds like a robotic toccata.
- The night jaunt A long nocturnal walk, solitary or perhaps with a friend.
- Tunnel An interstitial movement which leads nowhere.
- Trip by train A virtuosic conversation between pianos, which eventually becomes contemplative and lyrical, finally falling asleep.
- Die Spieluhr A music box which plays disjunct Mahler.
- Out of shape Chews on I and V chords for a good long time.
- La Malinconia A verse/chorus structure, with long melodic lines built from repeated-note figures.
- How can I live in your world of ideas? Takes its name from the caption of a cartoon I drew, which depicts a young penguin and his parents in a museum, looking at a painting of a naked woman. This piece starts out as a theme and variations, but is then gradually overtaken by extraneous material from somewhere else entirely.
- Flirtation Ave. An extended process of “coming together”, followed by a rowdy coda.
- Pavane (pour un compositeur défunt) An homage to gospel music and the late composer D. M., or perhaps neither.
Timo and David perform “Shy and Mighty” at National Sawdust in June 2017.
Photo by Michael Wilson. Cover design by Olly Moss.
The world première of “Shy and Mighty” in Beinecke Library at Yale University, May 2007
Watch
Purchase
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Shy and Mighty score, print edition
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Shy and Mighty score, PDF edition
136 pages, 9×12 format. Two scores are required for performance.
