Piano Sonata #9 in F# minor - Rapsodie mélancholique
The "Piano Sonata #9 in F# minor" subtitled "Rapsodie mélancholique" is one of many pieces for solo piano that James Domine composed during the lost pandemic years of 2020-1. The sonata is given the descriptive title "Rapsodie mélancholique" because it expresses a melancholy mood often experienced during the pandemic period of isolation.
The piece is possessed of a romantic nature characterized by alternating episodes of melancholia and passion consigned to the obscurity of almost forgotten memories, This sonata opens with an introductory prelude in F# minor leading to an harmonic sequence in the form of a passacaglia that roams restlessly through six diatonic tonalities before reaching a cadence in the relative major key at the codetta of the exposition. The development continues the journey through the remaining six tonal regions so that all twelve harmonic realms are contained within the trajectory of the musical narrative. The prelude theme returns in the recapitulation providing an harmonic benediction that winds its way at last to the coda where the final tonality of F# major belies the darkness of the preceding moments and brings the story to its somewhat sudden conclusion.
The "Piano Sonata #9 in F# minor" subtitled "Rapsodie mélancholique" is one of many pieces for solo piano that James Domine composed during the lost pandemic years of 2020-1. The sonata is given the descriptive title "Rapsodie mélancholique" because it expresses a melancholy mood often experienced during the pandemic period of isolation.
The piece is possessed of a romantic nature characterized by alternating episodes of melancholia and passion consigned to the obscurity of almost forgotten memories, This sonata opens with an introductory prelude in F# minor leading to an harmonic sequence in the form of a passacaglia that roams restlessly through six diatonic tonalities before reaching a cadence in the relative major key at the codetta of the exposition. The development continues the journey through the remaining six tonal regions so that all twelve harmonic realms are contained within the trajectory of the musical narrative. The prelude theme returns in the recapitulation providing an harmonic benediction that winds its way at last to the coda where the final tonality of F# major belies the darkness of the preceding moments and brings the story to its somewhat sudden conclusion.
The "Piano Sonata #9 in F# minor" subtitled "Rapsodie mélancholique" is one of many pieces for solo piano that James Domine composed during the lost pandemic years of 2020-1. The sonata is given the descriptive title "Rapsodie mélancholique" because it expresses a melancholy mood often experienced during the pandemic period of isolation.
The piece is possessed of a romantic nature characterized by alternating episodes of melancholia and passion consigned to the obscurity of almost forgotten memories, This sonata opens with an introductory prelude in F# minor leading to an harmonic sequence in the form of a passacaglia that roams restlessly through six diatonic tonalities before reaching a cadence in the relative major key at the codetta of the exposition. The development continues the journey through the remaining six tonal regions so that all twelve harmonic realms are contained within the trajectory of the musical narrative. The prelude theme returns in the recapitulation providing an harmonic benediction that winds its way at last to the coda where the final tonality of F# major belies the darkness of the preceding moments and brings the story to its somewhat sudden conclusion.