To the Memory of a Little Grasshopper

ensemble solo piano
written winter 2022
duration 6 minutes

For Huizi Zhang

I have always shied away from writing solo piano music. I was never quite sure which frightened me most - the density of the canon? The instrument’s relatively prescriptive design? Or did it simply hold too many associations for me, as a pianist myself?

If there were a single composer who embodied all of these fears of mine, it would be Frederic Chopin. Every pianist confronts Chopin at some point or other, and every pianist contends with the monumental craft embedded in each piece he wrote. So many of my peers and I had to learn the etudes and waltzes as best as we could, and as horrible as those memories were, I still consult Chopin’s body of work today as a handbook for piano technique.

To the Memory of a Little Grasshopper is a brief meditation on one of my favorite pieces by Chopin: the third Ballade. Among its brethren, it is not a particularly celebrated entry, but for whatever reason, I found myself deeply enamored with that ballade (and especially its second subject, which I use as a primary motif in Memory). In writing this piece, I wanted to try and capture my impressions of the third ballade as I remember it, as one might fondly recall an idealized memory. The title comes from George Sand’s affectionate moniker for Chopin - ‘little grasshopper’ - and considers how the on-again, off-again lovers might have tried to remember each other long after their relationship had passed.

Many thanks to the brilliant Huizi Zhang, for whom this piece was written.