Original new piano pieces 2020 composed and performed by Peter Butler. Scores available @ peterbutlermusic.com

Intermezzo No. 6 E Major 201016

Intermezzo No. 5 A minor 201006

Intermezzo No. 2 F Major 200413

Intermezzo No. 1 D minor 200309

Steiner Intermezzo  #1

🌊 "Intermezzo No 1" – A Whisper of Time 
A single note emerges – the piano, like a first step on damp sand. Tentative, searching, it carries silence within, as if listening for echoes of days gone by. The clarinet rises like a breath of wind sweeping across the sea, its voice filled with longing – for what was, and what never fully fades. Then the cello enters: deep and tender, like waves arriving, breaking, and in their retreat, erasing footprints, scattering thoughts. Thus the melody becomes a mirror of memory – melancholic, fleeting, beautiful. A walk along the shore of time, where every sound is a lost moment, and every pause a quiet farewell.

Intermezzo No. 1


Half-Time captures the thoughts and feelings of a basketball team at the halftime, rather than any actual playing. It is more about reminiscences, hopes, frustrations, and the numerous other feelings that most likely flood players at intermission, when the game is not over yet.

It is in five short sections (there are five players on a team), with the “bouncing ball” note A (also in a rhythm of five) appearing in most of them. The phrasing in the first section makes uses of rhythms derived from famous Celtic player jersey numbers (33 [3+3] for Larry Bird, 34 [3+4] for Paul Pierce etc.). This is followed by a section featuring a “wedge” motive, then a slow middle section featuring a dialogue between a cantabile espressivo melody and sottovoce harmonics, followed by a fast rhythmic scherzando section, and a concluding driving groove with a short coda.

While embedding jersey numbers in the opening section was a conscious choice, the rest of the piece was mainly the result of an unconscious process. I had heard Andy Wen’s beautiful saxophone playing at a conference and we discovered our mutual love for basketball.
I marveled at the fact that, though from San Antonio, he was a devoted Celtics fan (I call Boston home). I wrote the piece for him and initially called it Sonatina, until it dawned on me that what I had written had to do really with the game’s half-time. It is a musical intermezzo, so it can be played as an independent piece, between other pieces, and can even be repeated in the course of the same recital program.

This is a live recording of Andy Wen playing at Messiah College in Harrisburg, PA on Nov 1, 2023

© Michele Caniato 2023

Half-Time

Split into three distinct sections, Uncertainty Under Aggression is the current longest of Vanick's works. This experimental track boasts a runtime over 6 minutes and contains some of the most complicated melodies from Vanick.

Uncertainty Under Aggression: A Waltz in C Hungarian Minor // Intermezzo Allegro // Reprise

Brahms - Intermezzo in E flat minor, Op. 118 n. 6

Brahms - Intermezzo in B minor, Op. 119 n. 1

As Wolf Hagen, I compose music for the silence between the notes. Drawing from the tradition of great masters like Bach and Pachelbel, I find inspiration to weave baroque clarity with the emotional complexity of our time.
The interplay of piano and cello stands at the heart of my work – two voices that complement, challenge, and exist in harmonic tension with each other. I add orchestral elements with care, never to dominate, but to open spaces: for reflection, for stillness, for those precious moments of pause.
My compositions are not statements, but invitations – to discover hidden emotions, to find quiet in a noisy world.

I make music! If you have a project in need of music, reach out to vanick.mp3@gmail.com
I do not charge and I will work with you to make the perfect song for whatever project you are making.

Composer Michele Caniato writes chamber, orchestral, vocal, piano, and jazz music. His works have been performed nationally and internationally, including in the USA, Canada, Italy, Finland, and on Italian National Radio.

He was the winner of the 2019 Orchestra Composition Contest at the 53rd Contemporary Music Festival at Indiana State University, a finalist in the BMI Foundation/Charlie Parker Composition Competition in New York, and semi-finalist for the American Prize, and has received Fulbright, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and Jasper Whiting Foundation grants, and residencies at Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts (WY), and Escape to Create (FL).

Michele received a doctoral degree in composition from Boston University where he studied with Lukas Foss, and trained also at the New England Conservatory and Berklee College of Music. He has been a longtime member of the faculty at Fitchburg State University. Caniato is an ASCAP member and his music is distributed by Subito Music.

New tracks tagged #Intermezzo