Toccata on ‘l’homme armé’ (Hamelin)
Movements
Notes
Commissioned for the 2017 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition by The Cliburn with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, this work was premiered 30 times by each of the contestants in Fort Worth. It is based on a song from the French Renaissance which is the basis for several Masses. The Toccata is an incessant torrent of semiquavers, albeit one ingeniously varied in keyboard figuration. It opens with an explicit reference to the tune’s rhythm, disguised by cacophonous clusters. Thereafter, it seems fitting to imagine the emergent tune (not to mention the pianist?) as the armed man himself, fighting his way across the battlefield while repeatedly rising to the surface of the mortal mayhem around him. The music does embrace passages of a febrile quiet. But, whether or not our armed combatant survives to fight another day, Hamelin takes no prisoners: the closing two bars are delivered ffff.
