Pietà

for
keyboard

Peter Bannister
2018
 Pietà
Written for historical keyboard specialist Marcia Hadjimarkos, Pietà is a short work, yet within it
the attentive listener may be able to discern echoes of many sources of inspiration. Apart from
Michelangelo's masterpiece of the same name in St Peter's Basilica in Rome and the obvious
structural references to the Passacaglias and chaconnes of J.S. Bach and Diderik Buxtehude,
perhaps the most immediately apparent musical clin d'oeil takes the form of a more or less direct
quote from Debussy's piano Prelude entitled Des pas sur la neige (the idea of the piece having
originated during a conversation at a recital of the complete Book I of Debussy's Preludes). The
final marking in the great French composer's score, comme un tendre et triste regret - once pointed
out to me by my teacher Naji Hakim as an illustration of a fundamental principle of
compositional poetics - could well serve as a motto for the present work. Other influences can
however also be felt, ranging from the contemporary archaism of Gavin Bryars' haunting Ramble
on Cortona (2011) to the meticulous keyboard touch of Keith Jarrett in his legendary 'Standards'
Trio with Jack de Johnette and Gary Peacock, the melodic lines of consummate Dutch guitarist
and lutenist Jan Akkerman or the dreamlike harmonies of Pat Metheny's early recordings such
as New Chautauqua or Watercolors. Pietà is composed of thirteen brief continuous sections (a
ground bass and twelve variations); not only is thirteen a number especially associated with the
Virgin Mary in Catholic tradition, but the thirteenth Station of the Cross is the moment
embodied by the Pietà when the dead Christ is placed in the arms of His Mother.

Peter Bannister
Cluny, June 2018