Performed by the West End String Quartet at the New Britain Museum of American Art on Sunday 7 November 2021, in conjunction with a major exhibit of the prints of Sol LeWitt. The composition is a sonic analogue to the algorithmic wall drawings of LeWitt and is based on the pitches in his name: Eb E F A and B.

21 Lines: Pulse Music for Sol LeWitt (String Quartet #7)

Duo Concertino for oboe, clarinet, and chamber orchestra. Libby Van Cleve, oboe soloist; Charlie Suriyakham, clarinet soloist; Nadya Potemkina, conducting the Wesleyan University Orchestra. Live performance, Friday 14 October 2022. First movement: Quasi Sonatina. Second movement: Abstractions, with cadenza. Third movement: Dance Music. Recorded by Michael Arafeh, The Coffeehouse Recording Studio, Middletown CT

Duo Concertino, 3: Dance Music

from the memorial concert for Jeremy Zwelling, Sunday 13 November 2022. The text: 
Beloved moon, shed your silver radiance 
through these green beeches,
where fancies and dreamlike images 
forever flit before me.
Unveil yourself, that I may find the spot
where my beloved sat, where often,
in the swaying branches of the beech and lime, 
she forgot the gilded town.
Unveil yourself, that I may delight in the whispering 
bushes that cooled her,
and lay a wreath on that meadow
where she listened to the brook.
Then, beloved moon, take your veil once more,
and mourn for your friend.
Weep down through the hazy clouds, 
as the one you have forsaken weeps.
—Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty [tr. Richard Wigmore]

"An den Mond" by Schubert; Christopher Grundy, baritone, with NB pianist

The finale of my quartet in memory of Bill Wasch is based on "Morning" by Amos Pilsbury, #163t in The Sacred Harp. The variations begin close to the theme but get quite far from it. The four subjects of the concluding quadruple fugue consist of the tune itself divided into four equal parts.

A String Quartet For William Wasch 3: Variations and Fugue on "Morning" by Amos Pilsbury

This bit of spun-out heterophony speaks for itself.

A String Quartet For William Wasch 1: A Wistful Introduction

The opening of "The Bill of Rights: Ten Amendments in Eight Motets" by Neely Bruce. A composition in the style of William Billings. For chorus, flute, oboe, string quartet, double bass and harpsichord. Conducted by the composer. Recorded in performance March 8, 2012.

Bill of Rights: Overture

 "The Bill of Rights: Ten Amendments in Eight Motets" by Neely Bruce. A composition in the style of William Billings. For chorus, flute, oboe, string quartet, double bass and harpsichord. Conducted by the composer. Recorded in performance March 8, 2012. Gregory Harris reads the First Amendment.

Bill of Rights: the First Amendment is read

The bass line and basic progression of the final Chaconne are derived from a litany in the Orthodox Church, the text of which is ‘Lord, have mercy.’ It is a prayer for Aymeric’s repose. The contrapuntal density of the piece is a reflection of the many complexities of his life.

Aymeric Partita #7: Chaconne

The Badinage is quite literally a joke; in the score it is marked ‘vif et facétieux,’ ‘fast and jocular.’ (Yes, I know ‘facétieux’ has other meanings.) This movement and the Rondeau are my tributes to Aymeric’s wit and considerable charm.

Aymeric Partita #6: Badinage, Vif Et Facetieux

The Rondeau en cinq (in five-eight time; note the French spelling) is a gentle, wistful return to the seriousness of the opening movements. This movement and the Badinage are my tributes to Aymeric’s considerable charm and his wit.

Aymeric Partita #5: Rondeau En Cinq

The exuberance of the first Bourrée is a welcome change after the seriousness of the first two movements — but then the second Bourrée erupts into an almost violent lament.

Aymeric Partita #4: Bourrées I And II

The Courante is slow, the tempo of the French court dance. As it says in the score, it ‘. . . should be very pale, a ghost of courante, as it were.’ The ghostly effect is enhanced by the use of leather mutes. (Thanks to Alex Waterman for this excellent suggestion, as well as his indispensable assistance in editing this, and all of my string quartets.)

Aymeric Partita #3: Courante

Like many Frenchmen, Aymeric had a glorious, elaborate name — Aymeric François Esprit Dupré la Tour. Using an 18th century system that converts the letters of the alphabet into musical pitches, I derived from his complete name the following series: 
A D F E D B C F D A G C A B E E Eb B D B F D G B D E E A F A G D
and the attendant probability distribution; 5 As, 5 Bs, 2 Cs, etc. The long series became the subject of the Fugue; the probability distribution determines the chords of the Prelude and the Courante; and so on. As the various movements progress, the series and the probabilities fade into the background, and eventually disappear . . .

Aymeric Partita #2: Fugue

Aymeric Partita #1: Prelude

1 Modal Study No. 1

6 Serial Study No. 1

18 A Study for a Non-Repeating Scale

19 Pandiatonic Chorale

3 Random Study

10 Serial Study No. 2

12 Housekeeping

Ma Cousine, Arr. NB

4 Seb's Skeleton: John erases the C# major Fugue, WTC II

7 Pandiatonic Study No. 2

9 Seb Goes Full Pandiatonic

11 Motivic Study July 2023

14 Modal Fughetta In E

15 Pandiatonic Study No. 1

16 A Study In Modal Metamorphosis

17 Motivic Variations

21 Pulse Music

22 Serial Study March 2024

"This Is It!" The complete piano music of Neely Bruce, #7. Sunday 1 November 2015. Recorded in concert. This sonata is a strict twelve-tone piece. 

Sonata No. 4 (1965) 1.  Maestoso; Allegro moderato e sostenuto; Vivace; Allegro moderato; à piacere

Piano Rock Album. Five pieces inspired by popular piano styles. 1) Broken Windows 2) Logical Temperature 3) Napoleon at Junior's 4) Louis Chauvin Surveys the Current State of Affairs 5) Mack the Fork Recorded in performance. "This Is It!" No. 7 — The Complete Piano Works of Neely Bruce. Crowell Concert Hall, Wesleyan University, Sunday 1 November 2015 at 3:00 p.m. 

Mack the Fork [Piano Rock Album No. 5]

Napoleon at Junior's [Piano Rock Album No. 3]

Broken Windows [Piano Rock Album No. 1]

The third section of "The Portals of St Bartholomew." Recorded in concert by Jim Mustin on May 14, 2008, at St Bartholomew's Church NYC. For men's chorus, women's chorus, children's chorus, two trumpets, three trombones, two tubas, six timpani (one player), two flutes, clarinet in B flat, and St Bart's 12,422 pipe Aeolian Skinner organ.  Conducted by the composer, William Trafka, and Paolo Bordignon. The forces are distributed throughout the space in 16 different locations. The texts are engraved in various locations in the church. The composer imagines the building itself, singing to the listener.  Inspired by an conception of Henry Brant.

Portals #3: The Singing Pulpit

"This Is It!" #15 The complete piano music of Neely Bruce. This piece is a quasi-random scramble of fragments of dozens of Schubert waltzes. The waltzes themselves were also chosen at random. Sometimes the right and left hands are coordinated, more often they are not. Photocopies of the waltzes were cut up and taped together according to the taste of the composer. All key signatures have been removed, resulting in a giant pandiatonic collage, played entirely on the white keys. The composer acknowledges his profound love of the original Schubert miniatures, which he first heard played by Leonard Fletcher in the early 1960s in Birmingham, Alabama. He also acknowledges his debt to the Liszt "Soirée de Vienne" and Ravel's "Valses nobles et sentimentales."

Furniture Music in the Form of Mutilated Schubert Waltzes

"This Is It!" #17. The final recital of the complete piano works of Neely Bruce, recorded in concert Sunday 31 March 2019. This sonata was begun in the late 1960s when I was in graduate school at the University of Illinois. At that time I practiced the Boulez First Piano Sonata on a regular basis. I also worked on the Boulez Sonatine for flute and piano (with Tom Howell), and Structures Two for two pianos (with Joe Dechario). I wrote about a third of it and didn't work on it again until 1993-94, when I completed it. In addition to the strong influence of the piano writing of Boulez, it is modeled on the various one-movement sonatas of Scriabin.

Sonata No. 5

This is a nine-layered montage of an 8.5 minute piece.  ("Imaginary Birds" for laptop ensemble, ceramic percussion, and speaking voice.)The original is quite somber, but the resulting mélange is playful and fantastic. Exactly one minute of music, start to finish.

Mélange d'oiseaux: a bagatelle for Peter Standaart

I am a composer/performer. Today I begin to upload a lifetime of recordings! Be patient. A lot more to come...

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