Description
Track 8, and last, from the album Works for Piano album (2012) by Randolf Smeets.
"The eldest and most personal work “Philantus Erythrophthalmus Part I” closes the album. Brimming with mysterious caesuras of differing length, the unaccompanied right hand plays a circuitous arpeggiated minor chord. Tension builds as the tempo quickens ever so slightly over a four note turn. Smeets draws out the accelerando to a frantic pace and then just as slowly begins to slacken the tempo as well as decrescendo. He exhibits excellent control and independent thought processes in the right and left hands throughout this passage and into the end of the piece." - Kelly O'Neil (5 out of 5 stars)
Note from the composer: The last piece on the album is Philantus Erythrophthalmus Part 1. This is the first piece, written in 2005, I was experimenting with my new approach (read back at the beginning of MUN). This piece is really about opening up. Back then I was struggling with some personal issues. I was unsatisfied about certain things in my life. But on the other hand I noticed I was developing as a person. The title has a likewise meaning. Literally its Latin for some new discovered species back then. But for me it meant to discover something inside me that I was looking for all my life. This piece reflects that period well, in my opinion. Before I wrote this piece I’d never composed a ‘real work’. I did some piano improvisations [check out “The Phlod-Nar: The Crystalline Piano” from 2006] and wrote electronic compositions at my keyboard. But this work was the beginning of a new phase in my music, and in my life. As I listen to it now, it sounds like outbursts of melodies, finding its way through the air. It still has an open feel to it, a certain way of searching, which I like very much.