Night Thoughts (Homage to Ives)

Copland’s Night Thoughts, virtually his last piano composition, was written in 1972 as a test piece for the 1973 Van Cliburn Piano Competition. It was intended, he said, “to test the musicality and the ability of a performer to give coherence to a free musical form.” Indeed, although the form is not as free and nowhere near as extended as that of the formidable Piano Fantasy of 1957, it is certainly a test of musical sensitivity. In that the beginning is so effectively reflected in the end the shape of the piece is clear enough, however. While there is no sustained melodic thread to follow through Copland’s tortured nocturnal thinking, there is a whole repertoire of bell-like sonorities and icy textures to intrigue the ear. The Homage to Ives subtitle, which was added as an afterthought, is presumably a reference to the courage of a composer who had written piano music more challenging than this well over half a century earlier.