Yevgeniy Sharlat

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About: Commissioned by Astral Artistic Services. Premiered in Philadelphia in March 2008.

Duration: ca. 25′

Read Peter Dobrin’s review of the work in The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Piano Quartet is my first multi-movement work that is entirely cyclical. Its first page lays the foundation for the rest of the piece. However, it was my intent to create a unique sound world for each movement despite their uninterrupted succession. The quartet is structured symmetrically in three large movements, with the second one split into five smaller units that form an arch with “Fantasia” at the center. These middle five movements showcase duets (the “Morceaux”), a trio (“Fantasia”), and short transitional “serenades” performed tutti. While the central block is varied, the outer movements sustain a perpetual motion and rely on a more deliberate framework. “Toccata” is fashioned after the stereotypical double-expositions in classical concertos, with piano acting as the soloist; in it, the opening string exposition is later interspersed between piano and “orchestra” (though never conjointly) on the second run. “Chorale” is indebted to Bach’s elaborate chorale preludes complete with a walking bass. The cantus firmus is original and is taken from the opening. Pitch-wise, the entire movement is limited to a mode consisting of all white keys of the piano and an E-flat. All material brought back from the preceding movements (most prominently one from “Toccata” and “Fantasia”) is therefore mapped onto this mode.

Much of the work’s fabric is conceived using rhythmic ratios of 2:3 and 3:4. Elsewhere, regular metric groupings of notes are contrasted with groups of 5 notes of the same value. The last movement brings all of these relationships together, often vertically.

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About: Commissioned by the Seattle Chamber Players. Performed throughout the US and Europe.

Duration: ca. 19′

The title “Divertissement” is half-cynical. The piece is meant to be trivially entertaining to neither the performers nor the listeners. It is closer in meaning to the divertissements in French ballets – as dance numbers that display a dancer’s technical skill without advancing the plot. All four instruments are showcased separately in their respective caprices. The short canzone – the only slow movements – are intended to provide a degree of lyrical relief. Due to their strong motivic alliance, it is the canzone that perhaps sequentially carry the real plot, while the caprices persistently “divert” our attention away from it.

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About: Incidental music for play based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Rath Krespel. Premiered at Yale College of Sacred Music. Subsequently performed in Philadelphia and Basel, Switzerland.

Duration: ca. 25′

E.T.A. Hoffmann’s tale “Councilor Krespel” is well known in its bowdlerized version to operagoers as one of the acts in Offenbach’s last opera. The Krespel of the story is a mad jurist and music enthusiast who, in his spare time, crafts toys for children and dissects violins in order to learn the secret of their beautiful tone. If only he could cut open his daughter Antonia to study the source of her gorgeous voice! What causes her to produce heavenly sounds is, according to Krespel, a flaw in her chest; she will die if she continues to sing. Meanwhile, Antonia is being wooed by a young composer of some renown. Fearing that the man would not resist having Antonia sing his compositions, the violinmaker banishes the innamorato from his house. John Ellis attributes it to incestuous possessiveness, claiming that the disease is invented by the father to keep his daughter for himself. Whether the disease is real or imagined, Antonia becomes a caged bird in Krespel’s house, where she eventually dies and is buried next to the only violin that could sing as magnificently as she.

Krespel-Haus was conceived as music for theater. The instrumentation is derived from the main characters of the story: clarinet (Krespel), violin (The Violin), soprano (Antonia), and harpsichord (the Young Composer). Each musical number is played on stage; hence it has a dramatic significance. “Fachwerk” underscores the building of the house. “Scherzo” is a pantomime danced by Krespel; it is based on Hoffmann’s own piano sonata. “Grave” accompanies Antonia’s funeral, and it is her singing of the final aria “Mio ben ricordati” that, according to Krespel, brings about her death. It is the only number that employs a text – taken from Metastasio’s Alessandro nell’Indie, which is featured in another Hoffmann’s tale “The Automaton”.  In my mind, Antonia, knowing that singing this aria would be suicidal, is directing these words to her young lover in defiance of Krespel’s ban on singing.

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About: Incidental Music for a Yale Cabaret production of the eponymous play by V. Mayakovsky. Winner of the 2003 ASCAP Morton Gould Award.

Instrumentation: flute (picc.), E-flat clarinet, alto sax, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, piano, 3 cellos, male narrator

Duration: ca. 15′

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Duration: ca. 11′

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About: Commissioned and premiered by Anton Jivaev. Subsequently performed by Sharon Wei with the UT New Music Ensemble (Dan Welcher, conductor).

Instrumentation: flute (picc.), oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, cello, double bass, viola concertante.

Duration: ca. 22′

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About: dedicated to Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky and is based on a chord from the “Andante funebre” movement of his String Quartet in es-moll.

Duration: ca. 17′