Piano Sonata #11 in F# minor (Habañera)

Please join me for the seventh in a festival series of Sunday afternoon Pandemic Productions Presents Premiere Performances of Piano Pieces that I have composed recently. Each of these pieces is distinctly different from the others as by now you know if you have been following the trajectory of the sequence. Some of you have asked where the pictures and graphics come from. The answer is that I simply do a general search for images on a given prompt and voilà, there are many to choose from. To make these piano compositions known and available is the main objective that motivates these YouTube premieres. The graphic obligato accompaniment of pictorial imagery exists only to enhance the initial encounter with the music. Click on this link:

https://youtu.be/T0HCDfifF20

PROGRAM NOTES: The Piano Sonata #11 in F# minor (Habañera) is one of the many pieces for solo piano that I composed during this lost pandemic year. Cast in sonata form, the piece is given the subtitle Habañera because the music suggests a romantic narrative in a certain evocative mood. If Carmen could play piano, this is what the music might sound like. Habañera or contradanza is the feminine form of the Spanish word habañero that designates a particular style of Cuban popular dance music of the 19th century. The music for this dance has a duple meter and a rhythm that resembles a tango. Ordinarily the tempo of the habañera is relatively slow and sultry, as in Carmen’s aria from Act I of Bizet’s opera. The tempo is accelerated in this sonata to achieve an overtly more passionate effect by contrast. The lyrics to Carmen's aria might help to create a dramatic background for the new piece and provide a poetic flourish to the atmosphere surrounding the premiere.

L'amour est un oiseau rebelle que nul ne peut apprivoiser, Et c'est bien en vain qu'on l'appelle, s'il lui convient de refuser. Rien n'y fait, menace ou prière. L'un parle bien, l'autre se tait. Et c'est l'autre que je préfère, il n'a rien dit mais il me plaît.

The Piano Sonata #11 in F# minor (Habañera) will have its Premiere on March 21, 2021, at 12 noon, as the seventh in a festival series of Sunday afternoon Pandemic Productions Presents Premiere Performances of Piano Pieces by James Domine on his YouTube channel, for an audience of invited listeners.