The Modern Temper (1959) by Seymour Shifrin
for piano (four hands)

Shifrin’s music tends to be very chromatic, highly dissonant, and always a model of elegant counterpoint. The Modern Temper for piano, four hands, is unusually light-hearted for Shifrin. He was commissioned by Peggy and Milton Salkind to write it for the Composers Forum in San Francisco. He completed it in 1959, during his tenure at UC Berkeley. It is a short (eight minutes) single movement which actually contains three miniature movements played without pause (fast-slow-fast).