Michael Colgrass’ Tales of Power: A Performance Guide and Recording
Description
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Colgrass wrote Tales of power: A Musical Drama for Solo Piano on the Writings of Carlos Castaneda in 1980. However, since the work’s premiere it has been overlooked, receiving little attention from pianists. This neglect is perhaps due, in part, to the absence of circulated recordings and writings. The present study includes the author’s recorded performance, found online at https://youtu.be/GqzMjgaSIDc. Because Tales of Power is a programmatic work about Carlos Castaneda’s study with Don Juan, an Indian sorcerer from Mexico, the author has inserted the score’s written program indications in the recording so that listeners may follow the narrative. This performance guide includes a concise biography of Colgrass, a review of the composer’s major works and general compositional styles, observations on the program and structure, insights regarding thematic transformation and recurring motives, and performance recommendations for accommodating troublesome sections. The author hopes that Tales of Power can be revived in concert performance and become part of the programmatic piano repertoire in the near future.
Date Created
The date the item was original created (prior to any relationship with the ASU Digital Repositories.)
2021
Agent
- Author (aut): Li, Aoshuang
- Thesis advisor (ths): Hamilton, Robert
- Committee member: Rockmaker, Jody Rockmaker
- Committee member: Ryan, Russell
- Publisher (pbl): Arizona State University