Unstemmed for piano

Unstemmed was composed specifically for a concert given by Maki Sekiya at the JdP Music Building, St Hilda’s College, Oxford on 30 May 2015. It is part of a series of works for solo piano written by Joel Baldwin for various performers, all of which are loosely inspired by themes of water. The idea of representing water through piano music is well-established and has been explored most famously by Debussy, Liszt, Chopin and, more appropriately for this concert, in Ravel’s Ondine, which this piece preceded in the programme. The title refers to the way the notes (many of which are stemless due to the tremolandi) continually flow, at first gently and then more rapidly, over a torrent of excessively low tremolos that cannot be stopped until the idea eventually defeats itself.