Amani Nicolas. Suite pour piano, op. 4

Leipzig: M. P. Belaieff, 1901. — 20 p.Prélude, Minuetto, Gigue and Gavotte. There is some evidence that the almost forgotten Rimsky-Korsakov pupil Amani, whose rewarding and skillfully crafted piano works I am gradually making more accessible, drew his immediate inspiration to use the classical suite form from Johann Sebastian Bach's numerous suites. These consist mainly of dance movements. Amani's Gavotte, for example, follows the phrasing of Bach gavottes (think French Suite in G major), his Gigue similar movements from, say, the Well-Tempered Clavier and the piano suites. In the Prélude, too, Amani may have been inspired by Bach's polyphony: thus, right at the beginning, four voices (soprano, alto, tenor, bass, as it were) enter one after the other and take turns in eighth-note motion. Further passages with dialogizing voices follow. Amani has shaped the short piece in an astonishingly rich way harmonically, emotionally as well as motivically, without losing any inner coherence. The piece, drenched in late-romantic harmonic, consists of a melodic opening section, followed by a somewhat more rhythmically motivated middle section from the 1st mf (here 2nd frame) up to the rallentando (3rd frame). There, a few quiet transitional measures with charming harmonies follow, leading into the recapitulation. This is, of course, strongly shortened and passes seamlessly into a coda which begins with the p in the second to last line - as always with Bach on an organ point which lasts until the end.