SOLO INSTRUMENT - Fetch (2004) - piano
Duration - 9:00
piano solo (pianist also speaks)
Commissioned by Andrew Russo with funds from the James S. Marcus Foundation.
Text by playwright Will Eno
“Derek Bermel’s Fetch is a work for speaking/acting pianist from the piano bench. The roles of speech and music are reversed, with the words commenting on the music as the pianist played a few measures in one interesting style or another, and then doubted whether that was what he really wanted to be doing. The musical fragments were intriguing, and the verbal asides were sympathetically uttered.”
Find all of Derek Bermel’s works on Peer Music Classical.
Program Notes
Fetch is a short scene that I wrote in collaboration with playwright Will Eno. It was commissioned by Andrew Russo with funds from the James S. Marcus Foundation. Andy had requested a piece for “speaking pianist,” and the idea immediately conjured Fred Rzewski's fantastic “De Profundis”. Will and I tossed a few ideas around and eventually he came up with this character, a self-conscious pianist expounding on the roles of speech, music, and his own doubt. Anthony de Mare released a recording on his Innova album “Speak”.