George Chadderdon's Music

I will place what recordings I have made files of my music up here. Currently, this only includes 11 of the planned 24 Guitar Preludes.

11 Guitar Preludes

In the summer of 2004, while I was busy with qualifier exams for my Ph.D., I was inspired by Chopin's 24 piano preludes to write 24 preludes for acoustic (classical) guitar. I completed 11 of these using the Siblelius music scoring software. Currently, I only have .wav files up of Sibelius' MIDI playback of the scores. If your browser cannot play these, you can install the VLC plugin. I really should actually make recordings of these with my own playing some day (as well as completing the other 13 preludes, some of which I have idea-sketches for).

1. Prelude in C Major "Summer Grass" (.wav)

2. Prelude in A Minor "Tale of the Last Garrison" (.wav) An impression of doomed defenders of a fort (e.g. the Alamo).

3. Prelude in G Major "Blue Skies" (.wav)

4. Prelude in E Minor "Errantry" (.wav) A wandering minstrel sings of his travels.

5. Prelude in D Major "Peartree Polka" (.wav) See if you can figure out why I call it Peartree Polka. :-)

6. Prelude in B Minor "Death's Kiss" (.wav) I think I want to retitle this, but the theme is a man being stalked by Death. He is aware he is dying and he begins to lament his fate, but the voice of Death mocks him by harmonizing his lament in dissonance. Soon he hears in his head the clangor of iron bells, but when the actual (painful) moment of his death overtakes him, he is still taken by surprise.

7. Prelude in A Major "Shade of a Sombrero" (.wav) Quiet reflections in a hot land.

8. Prelude in Bb Minor "Consolation" (.wav) A friend (probably a man) consoles someone who is suffering (here probably a woman). Both voices can be heard in the guitar with the lower-pitched line representing the consoler and the higher-pitched one the sufferer. The consoler echoes the sufferer's thoughts until the conversation ends on a brighter note.

9. Prelude in Ab Major "Tender One" (.wav) A love song that wants to be Schubertian.

10. Prelude in C Minor "Exile" (.wav) Stylistically a homage to late 19th century Russian Romantic composer Modest Mussorgsky. About isolation.

11. Prelude in D Minor "Twilight Fog Over a Lake" (.wav)