Quartetting 'till the End of Time

This last piece was a real struggle at times, but other times came quite easily to me. The intention was to write three or four preludes for piano quartet, but after presenting a couple of them in class, it became obvious that I just needed to focus on one and expand it more.

I actually ended up using all of the original material, and even the last section that I added was reminiscent of other sections. It seemed that pretty much every time I presented in class this semester there was the comment "expand on this." "Develop this more." I still question how much I should use an idea and--more importantly--how I develop an idea. I took a page from Sibelius' book and developed ideas toward their final presentation (rather than presenting an idea and then developing it). This leads to a lot of deceptive movement and interrupted segments, which somehow works in the end. I think the piano tied everything together with its underlying movement. I'm happy with how it turned out.

Now, let's see what the summer brings.