• John McCabe
  • Aubade (Study No 4) (1970)

  • Novello & Co Ltd (World)
  • piano
  • 7 min

Programme Note

AUBADE is the fourth in a series of piano pieces given the generic subtitle 'Studies'. Each work is a self-contained recital piece, but each one concentrates especially on certain aspects of pianistic and/or compositional technique. AUBADE is a slow piece in which the music derives principally from the extended use of arpeggio figures and appoggiaturas, as the pianistic elements upper-most in the piece; formally, the music is fairly free, but it is quite concertrated in its thematic material, and it is intended to conjure up not so musch the coming dawn (as the title might suggest) but the moment of stillness before dawn. Brief fragments of melodies are heard, but as if in recollection.

Discography