Henry COWELL | Fabric (1920)

While it uses no tone clusters or other unique early modern melodic/harmonic materials, compositional techniques for which Cowell is most well-known and oft-discussed (and rightly so!), "Fabric" (1920) is notable for its avant-garde approach to rhythm; the two page score presents otherwise conservative harmonic and melodic materials in three-part polyrhythmic polyphony. It is a brief, brooding character piece in the late-Romantic style, setting a melody with descant line for the right-hand over a left-hand accompaniment, undulating in mildly disorienting parallax. Cowell’s invented rhythmic notation substitutes different polygonal shapes for the conventional oval note-heads to elegantly convey the shifting numerators of the “tuplets” (i.e. triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets, etc.). Although the performer faces a formidable challenge to maintain these changing rhythmic relationships, the paradoxical result for the listener is a feeling of floating, Chopinesque rubato that is best achieved with minimal actual deviation from the slow but strict pulse.

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Excellent interpretation! I like your playing even better than Cowell's!