Avner Dorman

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Song Without Words

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Song Without Words pays homage to Felix Mendelssohn's works of the same name. Like Mendelssohn, I tried to write a song for piano solo, reflecting styles of songs from the present and the past.

The formal structure is a rounded binary (A A B A') with the final A section truncated compared to the opening. The harmony is triadic in the outer sections of the work and quartal in the middle section. The overall tonal plan takes the piece from C minor through a modulation to E-flat major before ultimately returning to C major by the end.

This is the first published edition of this piece. The composer edited it in 2024 based on the original 1996 version and drafts.