Six Miniatures (1997) by Anthony Korf
for flute and piano
West Coast premiere

Six Miniatures for Flute with Piano is the sort of off the cuff work that invites spontaneity and affords relief from the self imposed demands of mightier efforts. My first attempt at miniatures, it was composed in about one month (for me, a very short time). It "came out" so quickly that I did not realize until later what an odd and provocative work it is. These qualities spring from the pieces ambiguity and unpredictability. Only in the second and fourth movements is any consistency of mood present, while elsewhere, near manic changeability reigns. Each piece can be in turn, ecstatic, morbid, coy or melancholy. Balancing this dramatic instability is an extremely economical, if not parsimonious, use of musical material, most all of which presented in the opening half minute episode. The theme, if it can be called such a thing, is an unprepossessing, ambiguous combination of Tea for Two and Tenderly. These tunes, as anyone familiar with them knows, are temperamentally quite at odds with one another. Similarly, the striding 10ths in the piano left hand owe as much to the great jazz pianist Teddy Wilson as they do to the second movement of Prokofiev's second piano concerto. Thus, if nothing else, this virtually uncensored work succeeds in revealing a few of my dearest musical affections, not to mention the sensations and emotions in which we all share from time to time.