Impromobile for Piano, Four Hands

Collected in the music CD New Music for Multiple Keyboards, Impromobile for piano four hands, by Michael Hannan and performed by Michael Hannan and Dianna Blom, combines the idea of the musical mobile (a series of musical fragments that can be played in any order at the discretion of the performer) with the practice of improvisation. In this piece each performer is presented with a series of short musical fragments that can be played in any order; and he or she is instructed to extend each fragment by improvising on it. The fragments provided are notated precisely for pitch and rhythm but the performers are free to choose their own dynamics, tempi and tempi variations. Pedalling is assigned to the secondo performer and is also not specified. The performers play and extend each given musical fragment at least once in any performance. They are also asked to analyse the fragments in both the primo and secondo parts, noting any intervallic, chordal, scalic, textural and rhythmic features that might be developed by improvisation. This process is intended to help them to respond in an inventive way to the materials being presented by each other.