Turning to Étude No 9,
after Rossini, I think I must have inherited a double-note gene! Double notes of any kind usually pose thorny problems, but they also yield textures of uncommon richness, and somehow it was my thought that this could be applied to Rossini’s wonderful song
La danza. I felt particularly cheerful and mischievous during the three or four days it took me to write this piece, and set about turning Rossini’s original practically upside-down, especially during the second couplet. Poor Rossini is subjected to sudden major-minor shifts, melodic inversions, a tune that starts a third too high, blue-note chords, and what amounts to something of a full-blown epileptic seizure towards the end. Also, for no particular reason, there is a slight allusion to the Gigue from Bach’s
Fifth French Suite.
from notes by Marc-André Hamelin © 2010
