Six songs without words – Set Thirteen

Set Thirteen was finished at the end of June 2019.

Song no.1 in D major – Andante teneramente

Song no.2 in B minor – Allegro leggiero (Listen below)

Song no.3 in B♭ major – Andante con rubato (Listen using the link below)

Song no. 4 in F♯ major – Ländler – pastorale: Andantino (Listen using the link below)

Song no. 5 in E♭ minor – Habanera negra. Lento (Listen to this song using the Soundcloud link below)

Song no. 6 in D major – Allegro (Listen using the link below)

The set opens with a tender and dreamy piece which is followed by a skittish and playful piece, despite its minor key. There is plenty of playfulness in Piece Three as well (though its noodling intro is deceptive). The main part of the piece is a beguine which latterly is heard in canon between the hands.

Piece Four uses a rhythm characteristic of the Austrian Ländler for its outer sections, though here the context is less boisterous than is usually the case in the folk tradition and rather more pastoral. For the middle section there is a more stormy idea in the remote key of D minor at a considerably faster tempo.

The following habanera (Piece Five) is largely dark and sultry, though there is a dreamier secondary idea and one powerful invocatory statement of the main habanera idea mid-way. The final piece of the set is based on a simple scurrying idea in quavers, though this is later treated to a brief fugal passage. A slower second subject returns in grand manner at the end.