Blues, Rags and Stomps

Boury comments that “A Tristan Two-step” represents his breakaway from modern music and was a way to be accepted as a tonal composer.

[2] Boury dedicated this movement to his colleague, Kurt Carpenter during their graduate study at the University of Michigan, and was premiered by the composer himself.

Many chromatic scale-like runs and jump-bass accompaniment patterns in the left hand make this piece tricky to master.

The pianist should practice slowly so as to avoid stumbling and only gradually increasing tempo.Between 1973–74 Boury’s interest toward film music led him to California.

During his stay in California Boury was inspired by the beautiful scenic of the canyons, the ocean, and the variety of foliage.

The time signature is a common meter yet it is a complex piece to master due to the hidden melodies and syncopation.

Together, the broken accompaniments and melodies might illustrate the variety of foliage that Boury was inspired to emulate from the scenery.

The pianist should aim for a lightly detached motion toward the ‘bell-like’ high notes in the left hand to ensure the fantasy like character.

Boury named this piece after the opening gesture of the American Manheim Rocket theme of the finale of Symphony No.

Like the old composers of the Mannheim school Boury used sudden crescendo in the introduction and rising arpeggiated melodic line accompanied by ostinato.

Use of a wide range of keys with chromatic passages and various hairpin dynamic indications support the orchestral quality as well.

Mastering the chromatic passages is one of technical demands also the pianist must pay attention to the tenutos, accents and directions.

Many swiftly rising passages are also doubled in this movement and the pianist must approach them with an ultra legato touch.

Overall the pianist must treat this piece as a symphonic work and prepare to play with full power and coloristic resources.

In 1969 Columbia Records issued a two-LP set called The Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake.

Boury’s tempo indication “wilted” at the beginning specified that Eubie Blake’s career had passed its peak.

In addition, the other tempo indication such as “slow & sadly” and “wind down to the end” support the blues mood.

This title comes from a short story Le Piéton de l'air (A Stroll in the Air) by Eugène Ionesco, a Romanian-French dramatist.

The story is about a contemporary person who sees a biplane from the time of the First World War fly over, and Boury thought that appropriate as a title since it was the height of the ragtime craze.

There is a subtitle, “a medley”, which refers to: “A collection of parts or passages of well-known songs or pieces arranged so that the end of one merges into the start of the next”.

Perhaps the composer intended this piece to show people’s feelings of sadness and depression caused by the war.

The result of the endless chase leads to a very dark and exhausted sound starting in measure in 50–.

Here may be described as people reached to their emotional limit at g dim° chord, and lost their hopes at mm.

6 by Sergei Rachmaninoff and I Left My Heart in San Francisco by George Cory were very similar.