Toccata (for piano): "On the Edge"
I wrote this Toccata intending to create a strong, muscular tour de force, in defiance of my Parkinson’s feebleness and intense fatigues that hinder my ability to operate a computer. It is a difficult piece which I intend to expand into a two-piano version. I've called it "On The Edge", as the music is dedicated to my friend Geof Edge.
I completed it just past midnight on 21st October 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic is once again rampaging through the land and indeed throughout the world. There's a certain irony about this musical form, since "toccare" is Italian for "to touch"....thus "toccata" is, literally, "touched". The current pandemic, whether in level 1, 2 or 3, is making us fearful of TOUCH, whether casual or intimate. The deadly virus transmits through touching. My toccata has both flipsides of 'touch' coin: the violent & the gentle. We humans crave touching,in hugs, hand-holding and the like; but these have become dangerous. We fear the invidious 'touch' of the invisible, deadly coronavirus.
I completed it just past midnight on 21st October 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic is once again rampaging through the land and indeed throughout the world. There's a certain irony about this musical form, since "toccare" is Italian for "to touch"....thus "toccata" is, literally, "touched". The current pandemic, whether in level 1, 2 or 3, is making us fearful of TOUCH, whether casual or intimate. The deadly virus transmits through touching. My toccata has both flipsides of 'touch' coin: the violent & the gentle. We humans crave touching,in hugs, hand-holding and the like; but these have become dangerous. We fear the invidious 'touch' of the invisible, deadly coronavirus.
