Topic: Six Canonic Variations by Dennis Riley
Here is another obscurity dredged up from my collection of avant-garde piano scores. Dennis Riley (1943-1999) was an American composer whose style extends from Webernesque miniatures (as in this piece) to a later embrace of neo-Romanticism. These six miniature pieces were written in 1963, when Riley was a student at the University of Colorado. All six are canons, contrapuntal pieces where an initial melody is repeated after a certain duration (usually less than a measure), at a different interval (even numbered variations), or inverted (upside down -- odd numbered variations).
Released on World Piano Day 2021.
