INVENTIONS TO MARDEN
(2005) solo piano, 16 min.

In the past few years I have developed a strong interest in the work of the contemporary artist Brice Marden. Looking at his work has stimulated musical ideas resulting in a set of five piano pieces. Inventions are often thought of as contrapuntal keyboard pieces or as musical fantasies; my pieces are both. I was not interested in portraying specific works of Marden, but in exploring aspects of his art that recur over several decades. The five pieces investigate various themes in Marden’s paintings, etchings and drawings: calligraphic gestures; seemingly impenetrable surfaces; looping lines that create weblike, fugal energy.