Note
Monk’s 70-something original compositions have had an outsized influence on subsequent generations of performers and composers, and while I’ve listened to and admired his music since first hearing it as a college freshman, the Monk Nocturnes mark my first time engaging with it as a compositional framework.
In interpreting the three pieces, I shift between varied strategies—paraphrase, fantasy, variation, and arrangement—to refract and recast the material. ‘Round Midnight is stripped to bare melody and surrounded by an unnerving chorus of rumbles, chirps, and tolling bells—a double homage to Bartók’s night-music topos. Misterioso is a set of continuous blues variations that emerge from, and eventually return into, the harmonic mist, but take some seriously polytonal detours on the way. And the cryptic Crepuscule With Nellie is a domestic conversation, full of unexpected asides and secret shared language.
The Monk Nocturnes exist in two versions: for piano solo, and for two pianos, four hands. The solo version was written first, and the duo version commissioned by Carnegie Hall, where it was premiered by Aaron Diehl and Timo Andres. The duo version expands on the concept somewhat, and incorporates more improvisation.
Purchase
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Monk Nocturnes solo score, print edition
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Monk Nocturnes duo score, print edition
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Monk Nocturnes solo score, PDF edition
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Monk Nocturnes duo score, PDF edition
21 pages (solo) / 32 pages (duo), 9×12 format.
