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At-A-Glance

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Length: c. 3 minutes

Orchestration: solo piano

About this Piece

For Hélène Grimaud, “Silverstrov’s bucolic Bagatelles are like walking through a forest, light shining through the boughs,” but their apparent simplicity is actually the result of painstaking notation. Not a note in the score is set down without some kind of dynamic and tempo indication, changing at times from pianissimo to piano to mezzo piano and back to piano in the space of two measures and a dozen unadorned notes, all accompanied by exacting, shifting metronome marks. This is spontaneity meticulously preserved, and not by accident.