As a sequel to an earlier piano piece, …of the lake II, continues to explore the concept of a étude from the perspective of both performance and composition. The pianistic technique and compositional design of … of the lake II is structured around the notion of a constantly changing appearance of musical harmony, rhythm, texture, and piano resonance. It resembles the surface of a lake or sea that gradually transforms itself by arriving to the shore: as the morphing of the water’s waves embraces a physical constraint imposed by the shore, sand, and stone, the music of this piano work finds meaning in a gradual transformation of wave-like musical gestures and melodic fragments within a clearly predefined tonal and metric palette.

In this work, I consider the empirical claim that listeners across cultures and with different degrees of musical training hear pitches and durations as relatively close or distant from a particular tonic or important metric position within a piece of music. Taking the concept of pitch and meter space as a primary mode of musical syntax and discourse, I created a number of interdependent processes that create patterns of musical tension and repose. While composing the piece, I was interested in capturing the wave-like perceptual attractions between different pitches, causing the listener to establish very clear melodic and metric expectations and grouping schemas. The result is an emotional plethora of evolving melodic lines and more or less fulfilled anticipations of their growth and decay.