In a Perfectly Wounded Sky

Today’s recording is a composition of my own, which I see I play a bit faster than I did three years ago. I like the new version — I think the faster tempo in the middle sustains the structural momentum a bit better — but of course I may have changed my mind about that three years from now. That’s the fun of interpretation: it’s never done!

Music readers and visual aesthetes can follow along with the score.

Paul Cantrell

In a Perfectly Wounded Sky

Paul Cantrell, piano

Download

(5:04 / 6.3 M)

The opening chord of this piece was the starting point for Saturday’s recording, Lingle.

Comments
(Please add your own!)

2004–9–9

I like the Brahmsian aspects of this piece -- the way you imply various meters without regard to barlines, as well as much of the voicing strikes me as perhaps influenced by your studies of Brahms. Your tempos do bring out a nice structural aspect of the piece, which for me is the repose of the (sort of) returning opening theme.

2004–9–10

Kinda Shostakovich-y, too, in some way I can't quite put my finger on. Very nice.

2004–9–10

I loved the first few chords. Very evocative. Unfortunately, it quit after that and when I fiddled with it, it just went back to the beginning and played those very evocative first few chords again. I'd love to hear the rest of it, but I don't know how. Sorry.

2004–9–11

The time signature on the score is an unusual one:
Andate grave

Snide comments to the side, it was helpful to me to follow the score. As you know, my musical knowledge limits me to the rough flow of the notes, occasionally recalibrated by abrupt changes in dynamics, full rests, etc. But even with those limitations, I saw aspects I had never heard -- some of tghe complexity that had gone by my ears unheard was visible.

2004–9–11

Oops! I'd fixed the typo in the tempo marking, and made some other revisions to the score, but forgot to repost the revised PDF.

Technical aside: if anybody out there figures out how to to make Sibelius generate PDF files that don't have ridiculously slow-rendering, space-eating slurs and ties, let me know. I'm rendering my scores as bitmaps to get around the problem, which doesn't make for the best PDF viewing experience....