In 2008 I began a series of pieces with the non-specific title Bagatelle, which could reflect my current interests rather like a musical diary. Never one to do things by halves, I decided to write one hundred of these over the next ten years. This may sound like madness; but there is method in it. For the last few years I have been building my music from eight-note modes. These use four notes from each of the two hexachords (six semitones) which make up the octave. This helps create the sort of audible identity which comes easily with tonal music - but without the danger of the déjà entendu or cliché which is inescapable when using a language so overloaded with baggage. As it happens, there are a hundred different modes of this type.

In Aerobic invention (no. 1) a two-part contrapuntal opening is followed by a decorated chorale; then the opening material returns in canon and turns into a fugue, which fades away after the subject has been stretched out into a series of trills; finally, the material is verticalised as a series of chunky chords in an aerobic coda. Free and easy (no. 2) is a simple little piece. A lilting phrase is passed through a modal prism which alters the intervals in an unpredictable way. The supporting harmony shifts correspondingly, and there is no other attempt at variety: once the melody has rung the modal changes and returned to its starting-point, the piece ends. Sweet and sour (no. 3) takes its name from its contrasted character. This is a deceptively hard piece: it denies the pianist use of the pedal, forcing them to create hand legato for the left-hand melody which takes up the first part. In the second part, the left hand sounds the notes of the mode like bells in the centre register, while the right hand cuts out a series of staccato chords all over the keyboard. The piece ends with a reprise of the opening, but with the notes exchanged between the two strands of music. Wasserklang (no. 4) is a piece about the sounds of water. At the beginning, the piano is on the surface, with light reflected on tiny ripples; then it plunges to the bottom, and explores the transparency and shifting light of the underwater world. A two-note theme emerges, and the music bursts briefly out into the air; then dives down again, using the sustaining pedal to create confusion and strange resonances. After a short silence, a passage of rapid repeated notes leads to the main climax, which mimics the splashing of waves. This ends in a passage of double trills which fades to a quiet, high chord. The virtuosic coda, marked schimmernd und glitzernd, begins very quietly, but grows to a climax of rhythmically uneven chords. like huge waves crashing on the shore. The piece ends with a quiet upward legato phrase, like drops of silvery water tossed into the air. Gradus ad nauseam (no. 5) begins as a protest against the tyranny of practising scales, then falls apart, morphing into a drowsy waltz which (whilst musically unrelated) feels close to Gershwin's Summertime, being underpinned by a series of four simple chords  almost throughout.

Giles Swayne
October 2008