Eunmi Ko, piano.
Bill Maylone, recording engineer.
When reading lead sheets or harmonizing jazz standards, I am always interested in the question, “what counts?” In practice, any tone can “belong” to any chord, or nearly so. The terrain between what can and cannot reasonably suggest, say, “A7” is richly ambiguous, and perpetually surprising. “Night Music” is a conscious investigation of this question, ten “realizations,” in the loosest possible sense, of a lead sheet.
The chord symbols in this video do not appear in the original score, but appear here for analytical purposes. While they do not always match the content (for instance, the quality of a third or seventh may not match the chord symbol) they show the creative impetus behind note choices, interpreted with the utmost liberty.
I wrote the work over a long stretch of time, probably starting sometime in late 2019 and finishing in early 2022. Commissioned by pianist and long-time friend and collaborator Eunmi Ko, we originally expected a premiere in Summer 2020. The work was intended for a midnight concert under the stars, one of the main events of the festival “En Blanc et Noir” in Lagrasse, a small village in the French Pyrenees. The evocative and unusual setting of the premiere made me think of the jazz standard, “Stella by Starlight,” a tune I had been playing with at the time. The rich voice-leading embedded in the song’s distinct harmonic progression made the process of “lead sheet realization” especially fruitful.
The intended premiere, like practically everything at that time, was cancelled. Feeling adrift in the first weeks of the pandemic, I found myself writing a nocturne in the style of Chopin, curiously enough, following the “Stella” progression. Because of the deep affinity that Eunmi and I share for Chopin, the Nocturne was both an homage to this repertoire and a gift to Eunmi during a time when social and musical bonds seemed uncertain and tenuous. Once the original premiere was officially cancelled, I set the piece aside for nearly two years, until 2022 when the piece did indeed premiere in idyllic Lagrasse (though not at midnight). The Nocturne remains at the end of the cycle, a distant and bittersweet reminiscence of both friendship and loneliness.
The work begins with a somewhat-standard, if idiosyncratic realization of “Stella.” Following this the work goes through numerous stylistic transformations, exploring different ways of thinking about Harmony, progression, and at times, jazz. The work is, of course, dedicated to Eunmi, the pluralistic nature of the piece showcasing many aspects of her pianism that I admire. As Ella Fitzgerald sang, “she’s all of these and more.”
– John Liberatore
I. Realization – 0:04
II. Four Lines – 1:39
III. One Line – 3:56
IV. Run – 5:12
V. Precipitato – 6:37
VI. Invention – 8:18
VII. Dovetail – 9:47
VIII. Overlay – 13:34
IX. Klang – 14:44
X. Nocturne – 16:20