Variations on "Rule, Brittania!"for piano solo[5:28]This work, composed in 2007 as a incidental theatre piano-roll sequence, was revised/expanded in 2011 for human performance. Beyond the adjustments enabling two-hand execution, and all indications for tempo/dynamics/articulation/pedaling, it introduces one new variation, #5.5.
1. Simple
2. Obstreperous
3. Harmonious
4. Theme from Arne's Masque, Alfred (1740), arr. P.A.
5. Topsy-turvy
5.5. Desperate
6. Reflective
7. Right on!
As the movement listing suggests, sections #1-3 are to be heard less as variations "on" than as variations "towards".
Regarding performance: The sustain pedal may be used to provide sympathetic resonance and to facilitate connection within slurs, but not to smooth over otherwise detaching articulations. I should note that the middle-voice closing of Var. 5 may be played by the soloist (rather than by the "page turner" as indicated), if [s]he can engineer an unobtrusive means to do so.