Fantasy After 'Verbum Patris Hodie' (1993)
Piano Four-Hands
Duration: 2 minutes
Note
Composed in October 1993, Fantasy After 'Verbum Patris Hodie' for piano four-hands was the second piece of mine performed and the first presented in a concert:
a joint recital featuring music students from Bennington College and Middlebury College in early November 1993.
At the time I had just begun discovering early music. One of the few CDs I owned was a recording of music for the so-called Feast of Fools
by the New London Consort. (I used to skip over the more over-the-top renditions of office hymns.) Their recording of the dismissal hymn
for the first mass of Christmas, 'Verbum Patris Hodie', was my inspiration for this piece. The brief melody was fragmented, expanded and set to a rocking
pandiatonic accompaniment. I thought it would be fun to have the secondo part ascend chords from the bottom to the top of the keyboard,
which resulted in plenty of four-hand gymnastics.
My first composition teacher Allen Shawn and I played it at both concerts; the recording comes from the second.
I remember being pulled over by the Vermont police on the way to the first performance in Middlebury: 67 in a 55. I tried to explain that
the gauge wasn’t precise. The officer was unconvinced.
The original score was engraved in Deluxe Music Construction Kit.
- Nelsonville, November 2025
Performance History:
Allen Shawn, Todd Tarantino, four-hand piano
6(?) November 1993
Middlebury College
Middlebury, Vermont
8 November 1993
Bennington College
Bennington, Vermont
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