Las Cruces XI

This piece has a lot of changing "catches" (middle pedal damper liftings), sometimes succeeding each other quite quickly. The opening has no catches - - subsequently undamped caught notes, or note groups, which ring with natural decay, have beginning tie marks on the score where they sound. At the end here, I have put a photo of my all interval series -- used for all the "Las Cruces" (sorry for previously writing "Las Lunas") pieces, and also for the whole 24 piece "Catch" series. There is also a page of derivations which were used in Catch XXII (not this piece). The different capital letter designations for note groups on this score, which is completely unmeasured, were references for me. ///////////// Long ago I was affected by a footnote at the bottom of a page of a small thin paperback book by Richard Rodney Bennett, where he explains a Boulez method for fully integrating two groups of notes. Later I was also affected by the analysis of note usage in "Le Marteau sans Maitre" - in a large blue paper back book by ?? (Both are buried in my storage shed here - so I apologise for the inadequate reference information.). As will be known to some subscribers to this channel, the two major influences on the way I write, are transcriptions which I did from jazz recordings - "record copying" it was then called at Berklee - especially in my case James Moody small bands and Thelonious Monk solo piano recordings. This started when I was at Berklee (62-64) and continued throughout my working life, with talented students, as a public and private high school music teacher. The other other basic influence on me was studying composition with Stefan Wolpe in NY, starting around 1968 and continuing intermittently until his death. /////////////. This piece was the last of a series of realizations from 2022. I continued the Las Cruces series, and, if I ever get one of the new music Macpros the products here should sound and look better than they do now - - but I can work with what I have. Thank you for being here. Paul Betjeman