passacaglia on a theme by radiohead (2020)
ca. 8 minutes
World premiere by myself on 14 April 2021 at Kings Place
View excerpt of score
Score available on request
There’s many ways of getting to know a piece of music. One way is through becoming associated with the continuum of time; certain music so vividly encapsulates periods in our lives.
Discovering Radiohead’s OK Computer was a real mind-blowing event for me, redefining what I thought was possible in music. Throughout my time in university, I used to listen to this album on repeat for weeks on end and, as a result, certain sensations and memories in that part of my life are now locked into that music. I’d listen to it on repeat for weeks on end and, as a result, certain sensations and memories in that part of my life are now locked into that music. The electric guitar opening of “No Surprises” always takes me to a lonely late night ride on the Boston MBTA’s Red Line; “Paranoid Android” makes me see and smell my freshman year dorm room.
For years I had been tinkering with some small improvisations on the bassline of the first track, “Airbag”, and I began writing a piano fantasy on this repeating ostinato in earnest in 2020. The melodic ostinato goes through several permutations, appearing in many different guises and forms, but always staying true to the major-minor seesawing in its bittersweet, Sehnsucht-ridden core.