incomplete short pieces, sketches and fragments
R0.00
When he died on 22 January 2010, Surendran Reddy left many fragments, sketches, ideas, notes and graphs, incomplete pieces, student pieces and files of teaching exercises. Much but not all of this miscellaneous material dates from the last years of his life. It helps to shed light on completed compositions by Reddy, on his methods of work, and on his methods of teaching. ACE has grouped them for this performing edition into four categories and made a webpage and a singe pdf for each category: 1: the teaching manual, a little exercise book for felix sebastian otterbeck which is prefaced by a document explaining Reddy’s pianistic history, approach to teaching and thoughts about music generally; 2. other teaching material and student work; 3: incomplete long pieces; 4: incomplete short pieces, sketches and fragments.
The incomplete short pieces, category 4, are available on this page. They have been assembled in alphabetical order rather than chronologically by date, because their date is in many cases hard to determine exactly; nor have they been grouped together into ‘areas’ or ‘themes’, because this, too, is impossible to be rigid about. Alphabetical order also allows for the occasional fragment or piece found in the Surendran Reddy Archive to be inserted into the pdf at a later stage. This pdf is freely downloadable. It begins with ‘alberti bass’ and ends with a piece simply called ‘x’. Some of the fragments were probably used as teaching material because Reddy was the kind of teacher – of classical and jazz piano and theory – who did not make a rigid distinction between a ‘piece’ and a ‘teaching example’. Thus there may be a few overlaps between categories 2 and 4. Reddy wrote some of these fragments / pieces by hand and typeset others in Sibelius. ACE has not changed anything except to add cautionary titles in square brackets where Reddy himself did not supply them. They were not meant to be published in the way they are presented here, but doing so gives some insight into the way he worked and what ideas he had for further work.
One of them, ‘hymn for peace and freedom from the kids of negombo in sri lanka to the world’ – shown on the right – was composed by Reddy’s partner, Heike Asmuss, who wrote new words to the French national anthem for the children whom she taught on a sabbatical in Sri Lanka. This is not so much ‘incomplete’ but an adaptation, which Reddy typeset.
The list of items in the pdf is as follows:
alberti bass, prelude2cmin, canonic barcarolle, crazy scale, die rache der ente (Margherita K. Philip), drumkit, etude for the right hand, etude in d flat, etude in d, etude in e, etude in e flat, flute & piano piece, hike’s piece, idea 4 symph, idea for new piece andreas, invention s-c-h-o-r-gg, little symphony 2, minor progression, moore’s alphabet, musetta, my scores kronos 2.5 toccata idea, nancarrow 2, nancarrow, new idea philip, new piece for stefan, ngomboanthemmusic3cut, noiree, organ variations on b-a-c-h, piano piece, piano piece sonata fragments, piece for flute and piano fragments, piece for hike valediction, reiner 3.1, reiner 3, reiner inFI12, reiner inFslow 1, reiner no.3inG.1st1.3 – sonata no 2 in g major, reiner opus 1, reiner opus 2, sonata for clarinet and piano, string idea, String Quartet II, Symphony no 1 in C, The Medium, toccata for jr or jz-r, var on var by brahms on haydn, violin partita 1.1, x.
