Padmasambhava Prelude No. 2 (2005) (4:30) for Piano. Copyright © Mihai Popean 2005. All Rights Reserved.
Popean, Mihai. Padmasambhava (2005) (4:30) Prelude for piano solo Op. 14 Invictus No. 1
Program notes
I remember spending many nights at school, after even the mightiest students would give in to the call for rest, so the silence would finally take over the monastery. There, in the dark, with nothing but the moonlight shying through the ancient windows I would lay my head on the piano and strike, for hours at a time, a single note in all possible ways to discover all the hidden layers of the sound-making process. Then two notes, than three, and so on… At the age of fourteen I was considered already too old to become a piano major and the countless hours of practicing on a fake keyboard drawn on the dinner table top could not substitute for the instrument itself, either. However, it helped in other ways… as listening to vinyl recordings or simply humming and trying to figure it out by myself, I started hearing the movements of my fingers as music in my mind and… for the next twenty years I wrote piano pieces in various styles or with educational purposes. This was the first piano work written since moving to the United States in 2001 and was the result of a major shift in my compositional style. The form is inspired from Rachmaninov’s piano Prelude in G minor, however the manipulation of pitch material bares many other stylistic influences. The piece itself was not written at the piano so I could move away from my already-ingrained musical biases and thus a revised edition seemed appropriate after consulting with several pianists. Padmasambhava was designed as an encore or as a showcase piece. The dynamic contrasts should be emphasized to a great extent while preserving the dynamic layering.
Performances:
World Premiere to be scheduled
