Kim: "A Winter Landscape" for Piano, Glockenspiel, and Alto Saxophone

Recently, I participated in a challenge to write for three random instruments. The three instruments I received were classical percussion, a saxophone, and a piano. All participants were given the additional stipulation to use a non-major or minor scale for the piece. In total, I had less than 24 hours to write this piece and only about four hours to rehearse before the performance.
I choose the Locrian mode as the basis for my piece. The Locrian mode is rightfully considered to be one of the less useful and more troublesome modes as it lacks a stable tonic triad. Due to its being built (in essence) on the seventh scale degree of a major scale, the tonic triad--the tonal resting point--is diminished. This ingrained paradox makes it extremely difficult to create a satisfying release in the mode itself. To create a feeling of cadence in my piece, I changed the diminished triad into the slightly more stable half-diminished seventh chord and used dissonance to make the tonic feel more like home.
The piece is structured in a very simple AA'BA" binary form with an introduction and conclusion. The mina difference between the first two A sections is that A' contains canonic imitation and more active melodic writing in the glockenspiel. The B section continues further with the idea of canon, this time between the piano and glockenspiel. At A", the music build to what feels like a cadence in A minor (the tonic chord being felt as as ii half-diminished leading to an E7) but avoids any resolution by shifting to an A7. In the conclusion, the saxophone takes over the piano's melodic line in the introduction. The piece ends unresolved with a half cadence in A minor.
Due to recording errors, I was not able to get a video of the performance of the piece. Instead, I had to use MuseScore 4 audio. Though it loses all the nuance of a real performance, it gets the gist of the piece across.
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#piano #composition #locrian #music