As dreams are made on

This piece for piano was written as part of an induction project with postgrad composers and pianists at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which involved a series of pieces performed as a sequence based around Chopin’s B major Nocturne, Op. 32 No. 1. My piece, which is the penultimate in the sequence, acts sort of like a recapitulation, beginning and ending with an ‘exploded’ version of the opening bars of the piece, and quoting a cadential figure in the middle, with some added dissonance in the bass.

The Chopinesque figures in the right hand drift between the mood of the original Nocturne and a kind of cocktail piano style, while the ‘Pink Panther’ triplet figures in the middle section swagger around the bottom half of the piano.

Thanks to Abigail Sin for her wonderful playing.