From it's very beginning, Arabesque 2, seemed to me to be a dance work. By that I do not mean that it was intended as music to be danced, but rather that the dance, the movement and the shape of a dance, was pantomimed by the pianistic figuration itself, that the way the musical ideas developed and intertwined seemed to be describing an imaginary choreographic action. The restless, ostinato figure which opens the composition and which permeates it is, in fact, based on a constant permutation of a dotted musical rhythm which vaguely suggests Spanish dance rhythms. This propulsive rhythm is then contrasted by a metrically free, melismatic figuration (arabesque) which appears in the pianist's right hand - the "prima ballerina" as it were - of the composition. The interchange between these two elements - one fixed and rhythmic, the other constantly moving and melodic - determines the rest of the work.

  Richard Trythall

Arabesque 2       Mp36.91MB