Carl Hu

Music

My recordings and compositions.

I love classical and jazz music the most. I play piano and compose. Here are recordings and scores of my work, sorted from earliest to most recent.

Beethoven's 1st Piano Sonata, 1st Movement.
- 4 min 3 sec. WMA MP3
- Recorded on 14 February 2002.
- I went to a small local studio to record this piece. The piano was a 1903 Steinway 7 foot with an uneven action but a nice range of color. This piece inspired me to compose my own first piano sonata; a task that took me one and a half years to complete.
My improvisation: Thoughts on Beethoven. Opus 4.
- 1 min 52 sec. WMA MP3
- Recorded on 14 February 2002.
- It took me seven takes to get the recording of Beethoven's first sonata (above). After completing that seventh take, I sat at the piano ruminating about the performance---trying to decide if I needed to do another take. I played this improvisation in the midst of those thoughts. I ended up deciding I was too tired to do another take.
J.S. Bach's Prelude in C Minor from his Well Tempered Clavier, Book 1
- 1 min 54 sec. WMA MP3
- Recorded on 21 September 2002 in my home. Feeling that my Yamaha console upright was limiting my progress as a pianist, I purchased a new 7 foot Bosendorfer after playing many pianos. I loved the piano then and still do today. This recording and all the following ones were done on this piano.
- With a piano in my home that vastly exceeded my own abilities, I decided to get some piano lessons. I searched for a month before I found a teacher that I really liked: Peter Mack, a professor at the Cornish College of Music in Seattle. With his help, I'm finally learning to play the piano properly.
Debussy's Clair de lune (Moon light) from his Suite Bergamasque
- 5 min 30 sec. WMA MP3
- Recorded on 18 October 2002 in my home.
- Under Peter's tutelage, I began to learn how to shape, sustain, and project a melody line above a busy left hand accompaniment. Here Debussy demonstrates that he can not only invent beautiful pianistic coloring, but also write an unabashedly lovely melody. The piece builds gradually from a lilting melody to orchestral textures before returning to a transformed version of the original melody.
Schubert's Allegretto in C Minor. Opus D 915.
- 3 min. WMA MP3
- Recorded on 22 January 2003 in my home.
- The Allegretto is easy to play, has few notes, and is short. How Schubert manages to achieve such haunting profundity with so little escapes me, but I think he does. In any case, I love this piece.
- I'd like to relate a story that goes with this piece to give encouragement to other artists in times of self-doubt.
Chopin's Nocturne in E major. Opus 62, No 2.
- 7 min. WMA MP3
- Recorded on 10 March 2003 in my home in Seattle.
- Chopin wrote this piece in the last years of his life. The structure of the piece, for first time listeners of this, is:
  - Aria.
  - Aria again, ornamented.
  - New tune with rumbling accompaniment.
  - Impassioned episode.
  - Restatement of first two themes.
- In the year since I recorded this, I have come to feel that this piece should be played faster than I played it that day. Still, I think the slower tempo has some merit so I include my performance here.
Beethoven's Spring Sonata for Violin and Piano. Opus 24.
- 11 min. WMA MP3 (best quality) MP3 (medium quality)
- Recorded in July 2004 in my home in Boston.
- Moving to Boston gave me my first chance to play chamber music. Under the tutelage of Gillian Rogell (at the New England Conservatory), I'm learning to listen and work with others to play this repertoire better.
- Playing chamber music is such an intense experience that few can talk about this without being mawkish. Still, for the sake of those musicians who have not yet tried this, let me just report that the overwhelming feeling I experience when playing has been gratitude.
- Anna and I recorded this piece one summer afternoon in my home. Yuchi took this picture at my birthday party.
My Nocturne in F Major for solo piano. Opus 7.
- 3 minutes. Score in PDF format.
- Composed on 3 March 2005.
- This piece, which I composed for the 3rd assignment from Larry Bell, my composition teacher. I wrote the piece to comply to the following restrictions: It must be
  - for solo piano,
  - tonal and use the following (conventional) means of melodic resolution:
    - the leading tone,
    - the tritone interval, and
    - bass movement by an interval of a fifth at cadences.
  - must always have a particular note (I chose C) sounding at the top voice at all times.
- I like this piece because it doesn't sound as if it was written with these restrictions in mind.
My Prelude in A Minor for solo piano, Opus 8.
- 2 minutes. Score in PDF format.
- Composed on 8 April 2005.
- This piece is a piece about longing.
My Adagio in A Minor for Piano and Violin, Opus 9.
- 4 minutes.
- Composed in May 2005.
- Piano score in PDF format. Violin score in PDF format.
- Performed on 5 June 2005 at the New England Conservatory of Music by Anna Anderson and I.
- Recording in MP3. Recording in WMA.
- I felt the melodies in the Prelude was not optimally expressed with the short sustain of the piano and rewrote the piece for violin and piano.

In progress

My Piano Sonata No. 1. Opus 1.
- This was my most ambitious piece yet at the time. Taking me an entire year to compose this piece, I finally finished it in January 1999. Here's the score, in pdf format. Sadly, although I managed to get one public performance of this piece in July 1999, the fellow I asked to record the concert didn't show up and I have no recording of this piece.
My Wind Quintet No 1. Opus 2.
- I composed this in June 1999. I discovered a local wind quintet and wrote this piece for them. Here's the score, in pdf format. I composed this piece for the same July 1999 concert as I mentioned above. Consequently, I have no recording of this piece either.
My song, I Didn't Think That! Opus 3.
- 2 min 35 sec. WMA MP3
- I composed this jazz ballad in July 1999 and recorded it in December 2000. Recorded in my home, I am playing my upright Yamaha piano. The acoustic bass was played by my computer, synthesized in GigaStudio. Here is the score for the piece, in pdf format.
A Chromatic Interlude for solo clarinet. Opus 5.
- 1 min 30 secs. Score in PDF format.
- Composed on 1 February 2005.
- I've begun taking composing lessons with Larry Bell at the New England Conservatory of Music. Each composition I write for Larry must satisfy a set of restrictions. Larry rightly points out that the restrictions provide freedom.
- This piece had to be for solo clarinet, be idiomatic to the clarinet instrument, must use only the chromatic (semi-tone) one interval between any two adjacent notes, and must have a clear beginning, middle, and ending.
Prelude in Dorian for solo piano. Opus 6.
- 1 minute. Score in PDF format.
- Composed on 17 February 2005.
- This second piece for Larry was composed satisfying the following restrictions: It must
  - be for solo piano,
  - use only two voices,
  - begin in the dorian mode, transition to lydian, then return to dorian clearly, and
  - be polyphonic in character.

Why this page?

13 October 2002

I find writing about music awkward. When cast to words, simple notions about music become subtle and deceptive. So I state what I believe without justification; reminding instead of convincing.

I believe in a notion of integrity in music; that music of integrity expresses something valuable and essential about the people who play or write it. I believe that amateurs like myself can achieve performances and compositions with a satisfying degree of integrity.

I believe that from the musician's point of view, craftsmanship is the foundation of music making. Having command of neither inspiration nor creativity, I concentrate on learning and executing the craft of playing and writing music to the best of my ability. For me, music has been an unceasing, but rewarding, struggle. Once in a while, when I exceed my own expectations, I record or write out the music and share them here.

Carl