There must be loose screws in the clockwork... the strike of every hour is another melodrama!

Composition by Mariza Costa-Cabral for piano, flute and English horn.
Another "baroquemantic" miniature.

Illustration credit: Mark Cela Graphics (markcelagraphics.com)

The Clock Goes Cuckoo

This piece is for 4 hands piano. But what you hear in this recording is played back by the notation software. This piece can also be played by a single pianist if sufficiently advanced. The difficulty for a single pianist would lie on the rapid succession of thirds on the left hand, which requires great dexterity.
Lots of changes in key in this piece. The first 13 measures (i.e., the first 30 seconds) go through the following sequence of Major keys: A, D, A, D, G, C, F, and E-flat. It then remains in E-flat for most of the piece until near the end when it starts shifting through keys again.
Train Photo by Sarah L. Ernst (2014)

Full Steam Ahead!

Belongs to my album "Pieces composed between October 2013 and October 2015".

WALKING ALONE WITH MY THOUGHTS I KEEP A STEADY PACE AND SHOW NOW EXPRESSION. This piece is played by software without any expression at all, except for a shift from mp to mf near the end (starting @2:24) and then a return to p @3:00. The idea is that the pitches themselves, without any added expression or dynamics, convey the emotions. However, in this page is also the version with a (fully) emotional interpretation. The score  is found here, as are comments from different composers: http://composersforum.ning.com/forum/topics/keep-a-steady-pace-show-no-expression

Walking Alone With My Thoughts MarizaCabral

Belongs to my album "Pieces composed between October 2013 and October 2015".

Two Part Invention MarizaCabral

Belongs to my album "Pieces composed between October 2013 and October 2015".

Photo of Braga's "fonte luminosa" (Braga, Portugal)

There Will Never Again Be Night MarizaCabral

Pieces composed from October 2013 through September 2015

Offbeat Romance Part 3 MarizaCabral

Offbeat Romance Part 2 MarizaCabral

Belongs to my album "Pieces composed between October 2013 and October 2015".

This was the first piece I ever composed, in October 2013..

Offbeat Romance Part 1 MarizaCabral

Belongs to my album "Pieces composed between October 2013 and October 2015".  For the score please visit http://composersforum.ning.com/forum/topics/little-prelude

Painting by Keith Mallett

Little Prelude No. 1 (played by Mariza) (#piano)

Belongs to my album "Pieces composed between October 2013 and October 2015"

(The image is from Jean Cocteau's "La Belle et la Bête")

Walking Alone With My Thoughts (played by Mariza) (#piano)

This is an exercise on one type of effect that results from contrasting a major key with a minor key.  The 1st part is a happy tune in F major.  It ends with a crescendo leading to the dominant (C major chord) which gets suspended before a pause.  We expect to hear it resolve to F major again.  Instead, the 2nd part is in F minor.  (Sorry about many bad mistakes in the playing - lacked time to practice.)
About the title: The Waldrapp Ibis' return to Europe after 300 or so years, and its geographic migrations to far away places (you can look all this up with a search engine) is used as an analogy for a return of the Baroque which, like the Ibis, can be viewed by some as appearing eccentric.


Return Of The Waldrapp Ibis

This is an excerpt from my piece "The Sun Sets Sail". You can listen to the entire piece here: https://soundcloud.com/mariza_costa-cabral/intro-the-sun-sets-sail-g

A theme from "The Sun Sets Sail"

Very few of my pieces are in major keys. This is one of the few.

Song for 2 voices or 2 instruments

New Year Resolutions (a resolute little piano piece)

It's time to sleep now, my angel. Tomorrow you can jump all you want on the puddles again.

Played by me.  Did I use enough pedal? :-)

Unusual aspects of this piece for me:  a) It's in a Major key; b) there are no modulations whatsoever, not a single accidental in the entire score; and c) it's not baroque.

Puddle jumper's lullaby / Canção de embalar do salta-poças (played by Mariza)

This is Wesley Curry II (https://soundcloud.com/wescurryii) playing the piano.  The first part (theme, ending @ 1:50) is written by me. The second part (variation) is written by Wesley. This performance is played live by Wesley. Here is my original version of this theme: https://soundcloud.com/mariza_costa-cabral/pasdedeux-marizacabral 

You can hear some of Wesley's music here: https://soundcloud.com/wescurryii

The photo is by Jan van der Greef. Info here: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/wpy/gallery/2014/images/birds/4837/touch%25C3%25A9.html

Variation by Wesley Curry II on a theme by Mariza Costa-Cabral, titled "Pas de Deux".

Composed in 1910 (at the age of 19 y.o.) by Luíz de Freitas Branco (1890-1955), "Paraísos Artificiais" is one of my favorite pieces of all time. I post it here to divulge this piece and composer. 

The piece is inspired by Thomas De Quincey's book "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" (1822), as adapted by Baudelaire in "Les Paradis Artificiels" (1860).

Here played by Ireland's RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Álvaro Cassuto.

Painting by James Abbott McNeill Whistler (titled "Nocturne in Grey and Gold: Chelsea Snow"). This painting accompanied this piece on a YouTube video I watched, and from which I downloaded this mp3. It feels appropriate to accompany this piece, the man approaching a pub (the lit windows suggest to me a pub) on a lonely winter night. Gold versus Grey.

(Incidentally, recall that Debussy composed 3 nocturnes inspired by 3 of Whistler's "nocturne" themed paintings.)

Luíz De Freitas Branco - Paraísos Artificiais (Artificial Paradises)

This little prelude has been in my head for about a month, and was nagging me so badly that I found the time to write it down and learn to play it (sort of, anyway).  The opening 2 bars are similar to the beginning of my Goldilocks piece.

Little Prelude No. 2

Orchestration by John Driscoll (https://soundcloud.com/driscollmusick) of original piece by Mariza Costa-Cabral. The choice of all instruments is John's, as well as all richness of musical details, and the midi and sound files.

I wrote this piece for my husband.

The accompanying image was found on the internet without attribution.

I trust you like a flying trapezist - by Mariza Costa-Cabral, orchestrated by John Driscoll

Little Prelude no. 3

Little Prelude No. 3

Composed 1926-27 by Luíz de Freitas Branco (1890-1955), his 2nd symphony was dedicated to one of his sisters (Maria Cândida Freitas Branco) on the occasion of her joining the monastery of the Carmelitas Descalzas in Spain, and is based on Gregorian chant (so I'm told...). Here is movement 2 (Andantino con moto), played by Ireland's RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Álvaro Cassuto. This symphony has 4 movements (of which this is the least complex) and this RTÉ performance (my favorite interpretation of all available) can be purchased here: https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/3175513?ev=rb

From the CD blurb: "The use of Gregorian chant is the consequence of the fact that Freitas Branco's sister, to whom the work is dedicated, had become a nun in a Carmelite monastery in Spain. This event left a strong mark on Luis de Freitas Branco, who by nature and belief, did not follow the principles of the Catholic faith in which he had been brought up."

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Luíz de Freitas Branco - Symphony 2 mov 2 (1927)

Composed by Mariza Costa-Cabral
Played by the Notion software (hence so exacting!)
The painting shown is "The Piano Lesson" by Marci Oleszkiewicz.

The piano lesson

Composed at age 17 by Luíz de Freitas Branco, this symphonic poem is inspired by Antero de Quental's poetry. 

Budapest Philarmonic Orchestra, conducted by András Kórodi.
You can buy this recording at Discogs.

Many years later, Luíz wrote other compositions inspired by Antero de Quental's poems: "Hino à Razão" (piano and voice, 1932), "Três Sonetos de Antero" (piano and voice, 1934), the cycle "A Ideia" (1937-43), and "Solemnia Verba" (symphonic poem, 1950).

Luíz de Freitas Branco: “After a Reading by Antero de Quental” (1907, age 17)

"Fat fingers" refers to hitting more notes than the one intended. In this case of this piece, much fat-fingering is already written into the score... hehehe...

This is played by software. I used the Ntempo feature to humanize it somewhat, but the dynamics is very flat. Unfortunately, the piece is beyond my current playing skills.

The key is C-Major, with some modulations into F-minor and A-Major, and some chromaticism (or are they just wrong notes?).

Frolic of hoofs and fat fingers

A frolic of hoofs and fat fingers

Composed by: Mariza Costa-Cabral, except for the part from 1:45-3:51 which is Bach's BWV 999, with its rhythm altered by Mariza.
Arranged, performed and engineered by: Ed Hartman (edhartmanmusic.com). 

There was of course that summer night when Johann Sebastian Bach lied down on his back, looked up at the sky, and let his mind bring him back to his early childhood in Eisenach when his parents were still alive and he lived with them and all of his siblings, and he felt whole again for a few minutes. (Johann lost his parents at the age of 9.) That night, his little prelude BWV 999 might have played in his mind and, although it did not sound like this, it may have felt something like this.

By the way, I liked the following interpretation of BWV 999: https://soundcloud.com/bibliotecaperezcruz/j-s-bach-preludium-in-c-minor-bwv999

Träume von Eisenach - by Mariza, arranged by Ed Hartman

The ship leaves at eight... and an agonizing decision needs to be made...

This recording is simply the playback of the notation software ('Notion').

The Ship Leaves at Eight

This piece starts off from the repeating 4 notes of the 3rd movement from Beethoven's Tempest Sonata (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRoZgmqlfso) but takes off in a much different direction with new melodies. The piece borrows from Beethoven only those repeating 4 notes and the figuration of the left hand... everything else being my own. Though the feeling is overtly Beethovian too (with all due distances, of course)... And do you sometimes hear echoes of the Für Elise? (To my ear, the Für Elise itself has echoes of the Tempest's 3rd movement, even in its opening theme.)

The title "After the Tempest" has double meaning. It "takes after" Beethoven's Tempest's 3rd movement. And it also represents the sunlight and freshness felt after a storm's atmospheric depression has passed. Triple meaning, actually, as we endure this terrible worldwide depression and wish for the day it will past us somehow...

Played by software, sorry...

The painting shown is by Thomas Cole (1836), entitled "The Oxbow" and represents an oxbow in the Delaware River after a passing storm. Beethoven's Tempest sonata was written 1801-1802 and Für Elise dates from 1810.

After The Tempest (#piano)

I am a scientist who started composing music as a hobby in 2013. I have not studied composition and do not approach it analytically, only intuitively. I took piano lessons in my childhood and teens, but spent most of my adult life without playing piano until 2013. So far I have composed mostly for piano, in a polyphonic style that borrows from the Baroque as well as the Romantic spirit. I describe my style as "Baroquemantic". 

Most of my piano pieces are easy to play.  Some are very easy to play.  

All of my pieces rely on 2 or more concurrent melodies (counterpoint).

Art shown above: Image of clockwork heart found on the internet without attribution.
 
A Portuguese guy called "Carlos Miguel" wrote the following on YouTube and  I think this is so so so so true! I will be quoting him everywhere I can:
"...a boa música é como as boas palavras, depende de quem as diz e de quem as ouve...podem não vir a ser nada e podem ser tudo...ou ambas as situações em simultâneo...genial também é quem ouve...pelo seu modo de ouvir... e não só quem  compõe...pelo seu modo de compor...Carlos Miguel"

Freely translated from Carlos Miguel: "...Good music is like good words... it depends on who utters and who listens... it can be nothing or it can be everything... or both simultaneously... for there to be a work of genius there needs to be a genius listener as well as a genius composer..."

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