Reveiws

I LOVE A PARADE: AN INTERVIEW WITH JUDITH LANG ZAIMONT

Clavier / July 2007
By JUDY NELSON

"It is the uproarious clash of sounds — divine cacophony — that I love in a parade," says composer and pianist Judith Lang Zaimont, who wrote the piano prelude "July," inspired by parade sounds. The piece, which is reprinted in Clavier this month, is a salute to the Fourth of July and one of 12 preludes in the collection, A Calendar Set (Jabez Press).

"July" includes quotes from "The Stars and Stripes Forever," "Columbia, The Gem of the Ocean," and "Yankee Doodle" in addition to a passage from he Funeral March Sonata of Chopin, hidden around measure 80. The rhythm of the words "I love a parade" is enclosed in the introduction and the coda.

Judith remembers that the outline for "July" sprang into her head one day. "It was fun to piece together bits of holiday marches; I just sat down at the piano and played it. The prelude came together quickly. In two days I completed it and wrote out a manuscript copy."

The opening of "July" is counted in quarter notes and dotted-quarter notes, not eighth notes, so the music progresses more slowly than the busy notation might suggest. Listeners hear the big beat. The prelude's introduction includes notation that has pianists using the entire forearm to play clusters of notes on the black keys. "This is a standard technique for pianists who perform music from the mid-20th century and forward. It did not seem unusual to me. 'July' has the left hand in great bass clef, octava bassa, beginning in measure 5, where it bumps down one octave util measure 35.

"It helps to think of balancing the body to play the clusters. Imagine the center of the body as a center line bisecting a triangle, withe the left hand as one leg of the triangle. As the pianist bends down to plan a cluster of notes with the forearm held horizontal to the keys, he balances the triangle.

"There is also an eighth rest before and after each forearm cluster, so there is plenty of time to come down with the forearm and bob back up. The movement takes the same amount of time that it takes a string player to change from pizzicato back to arco. Pianists can play a black-key cluster with their forearm or for added cacophany angle the right hand out a bit towards the body and hit some white keys."

Judith uses broken slurs beginning in the second half of measure 6 to show articulation, where the second portion of the measure looks as though it is made up of two quarter notes of music. This is what she calls a thought unit. "To show the phrasing continues across separated notes played with lightness and a march feel, I used a dotted or broken slur to respect the eighth rest in the left hand. In the same spot the right hand plays close to the keys and has a distinct lift; here I used a solid slur to show the articulation. Sometimes the pedal marking guides the phrasing. In measure 84 the pedal should sustain the held C-sharps. Because this is a march, the music would sound too smooth if a pianist held the C-sharps with the thumb while playing the chords in the following measure."

Judith started to compose the preludes in A Calendar Set in 1972 writing "April," "June," and "August" while she lived in Paris. Each prelude was written in the month it depicts, and she completted the project in January in New York, 1978. "I wrote the pieces for myself to play. They gave me a chance to inject something from the present when I played recitals and concerts of music by great composers, mostly of the past. Other pianists became interested in the collection, so for many years it circulated in manuscript form, a fascimile of my own hand. This is the first time it has been set by a computer."

Of the other preludes, Judith says "October" is a favorite. It includes what she calls "little two-note twitters," with one hand replacing the position of the other as they move up and down the keyboard across many octaves on the same two keys in each register. Although the music looks incredibly active, each hand simply takes the position of the other, skating on the surface of the keyboard.

"People tend to look at summer and winter as opposites, with the months of spring and autumn as transition periods. 'October' has open-ended phrases, each with a kind of grey closure. This is fast music, but it is not difficult to play. 'November' and 'February' are static. 'November' is bitonal, austere and controlled, and with no resolution at the end. 'February' has on a high pedal point from which two phrases seem to hang down like icicles.

"Many pianists tell me they enjoy 'June,' which is in A Lydian with lots of D-sharps, and the prelude 'April,' a pentatonic piece that moves from the high treble range down to the lowest B-flat. It returns to the high register and the dissipates in the treble."

None of the preludes are in C, and each piece is in a key that has a closing tonality with black keys; "February" and "November" are the busiest preludes. The two quodlibet preludes are "December," full of Christmas carols, and "July," with its many parade tunes.

While Judith says she never watched a parade as a spectator, she has first-hand experience being in the middle of those clashing sounds as a glockenspiel player in a school marching band. "In junior high I was the pianist for the school's combined orchestra and band, and I inherited the glockenspeil when the band marched in parades."

Thanks to that glockenspeil, we pianists have a rousing special piece to play as we celebrate the Fourth of July.

 

« Back