»Dedicated to Karlheinz Roschitz«

For piano
Premiere: 11 January 2020 in Vienna, played by Kaori Nishii
Duration: ca. 2 minutes

Published by Edition Contemp Art (Verlagsgruppe Hermann),
Obtainable via www.schott-music.com
Product number: VGH 2690-70

I was asked to contribute a short piano miniature for a concert in the Alte Schmiede in honor of the prominent Viennese music critic Karlheinz Roschitz. This resulted in Monsieur Moderne, which I wrote in May 2019. Roschitz resigned as music curator of the Viennese Kunstverein Alte Schmiede, a post he had held for several decades, in 2019.

As in the other pieces belonging to my opus 14, all of which are tributes, the musical name of the dedicatee is closely intertwined with the harmonic conception of the piece. In this case, the pitches involved are A – d (which stands for the "re" found in the name) – b natural (from the letter "h", which stands for b natural in German musical notation) – e - - d (the "re" once more) – E flat (the letter "S"; Es stands for e flat in German musical notation) – c – b natural (again from the letter "h"). A short motive provides the impulse for this miniature, whose texture mainly consists of homophonically-conceived harmonies. The piece is permeated by two contrasting elements: an ascending harmonic progression, and two chromatic three-part cells moving in opposite directions and whose configuration undergoes only minimal modifications.

The impulse for the piece and its title was given by the originality of its dedicatee, who was very aware of his vocation - and who knew how to defend his opinion with that vigor that one encounters in influential and notorious representatives of his profession to this day.