Jeremy Beck

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Four Piano Pieces for Young Musicians is a set of short, easy pieces for student recitals. "Mouse in the House," "Clouds," "March of the Elves," and "Road Trip" are designed to be musically interesting, harmonically engaging, fun to play, and progressively more difficult while still remaining within the technical reach of young musicians.

Four Piano Pieces for Young Musicians

Easy Piano Solo

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Voice

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This lively composition is from Beck's children's opera, Chloe and the Magical Christmas Forest. Commissioned and produced by TADA! Youth Theater in New York City, Chloe and the Magical Christmas Forest is a musical fable. Presents appear in a magical forest only on Christmas Eve and the villagers learn a valuable lesson about the importance of giving to others.
 
Please note that the cost of the music for Fa-la-la is per copy required for performance.
 
A type of hybrid opera/musical that is entirely sung, Chloe and the Magical Christmas Forest may be performed by any combination of adults and/or children. At its premiere, it was performed entirely by young people ages 5-18, with a conductor and chamber accompaniment of flute, violin, cello, and percussion. Please contact the composer directly for information about this stage work.

Fa-la-la

These Two Pieces for solo guitar were composed in New York City in 1981. They were slightly revised in 2007 in Louisville, Kentucky. The first piece, Ashmere, is the name of a peaceful lake in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. Birnam Wood is taken from Shakespeare's Macbeth. The first performances of these two pieces (prior to their revision) took place at the Mannes College of Music in New York City. Larry Del Casale performed Birnam Wood on 14 May 1981. He then played Ashmere on 28 January 1982. The revised score of the Two Pieces was recorded by Todd Seelye in 2007 in Cedar Falls, Iowa. This revised version is dedicated to him. Seelye's recording appears below and is included on Beck's 2020 CD, by moonlight (innova 1051).

Two Pieces

Guitar Solo

Jeremy Beck's Brass Quintet was originally premiered 7 November 1987 by the Eroica Brass (Donald Batchelder and Charles Olson, trumpets; Susan Panny, horn; James Decker and Richard Ford, trombones), in a concert of his music produced at Carnegie Recital Hall (Weill) in New York City.  In 2013, Beck revised the work to be performed by 2 trumpets, horn, trombone and tuba. The piece runs ca. 14" in three movements.

Brass Quintet

The Piano Trio runs ca. 9-10” in three movements. The first movement (Allegro con brio) is in a lively 6/8 meter composed with a key signature of two flats. It unfolds in a ternary form with a middle B section that provides a kind of development of the A section’s principal materials. The second movement is a chaconne marked Lento e risoluto and begins with the solo violin. This movement is designed around a three-measure ground bass which is first introduced in the solo violin part. The melodic line above this ground bass becomes increasingly florid as the other instruments (first piano, then the cello) are introduced. There follows a brief canonic interlude with this melody and bass before the opening music returns. The final movement (Allegro non troppo) begins with music that is light and dance-like in character. Also in a ternary form, the middle section provides an interpolated slow movement. There is a type of false recapitulation, then further slow music that partly hints at the main theme. The opening music then fully returns and the movement ends with a rousing coda.
 
The Beck Piano Trio was premiered 15 April 1982 at the Mannes College of Music in New York City. The performers were Julie Metz (violin), Peter Susser (cello), and Deborah Jamini (piano). The recording here is from that premiere.

Piano Trio

Piano Trio- Violin, Cello, Piano Trio

Format

"The Good Earth" is composed for beginning orchestra with a running time of approximately 2 minutes. 
Scored for 2121/2321/timp+2/optional pno/strings, this piece has a majestic spirit that is designed with melodic interest 
and engaging harmony that is primarily triadic. The C trumpets parts are also available in Bb and an optional piano part 
may be utilized to fill out harmony and double lines as needed. In addition to timpani (two drums), the percussion part calls 
for triangle, crash cymbals, and snare drum.

The Good Earth

Full Orchestra Score & Parts

One of the compositions Beck wrote and completed during the chaotic time of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic lockdown was his Cello Concerto. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, this four-movement work is not chaotic at all. In its 22 minutes it is grounded in clear forms, rich harmonies, melodic interest, and a solo cello part that is both singing and virtuosic. It has been recorded in Bulgaria by Atanas Krastev, cello, with the Sofia Session Orchestra, Grigor Palikarov.
 
After an arpeggio that outlines the principal tonic area of e minor, the descending major 2nd that begins the opening melodic figure in the solo cello will be seen to inform a macro harmonic structure. As noted, the first movement begins and is primarily centered in the key of e minor, broadly defined by Beck, but ultimately travels to and concludes in d minor. This harmonic structure returns as a principal focus of the final movement, but this time the music is primarily centered in the key of F# minor, broadly defined, which ultimately makes its way to close in the key of E major, bringing the concerto to a close in the original "home" tonic area.
 
When Beck has referred to these various keys as being "broadly defined," this reflects the fluid nature of the internal harmonic relationships found within those tonic areas. Accordingly, at any given moment there may be some modal inflections, or a passage that is somewhat pandiatonic, or a passage that is ungrounded in tonality, but where the framework of this changing tonal palette is conceptually centered in a home key or home tone that provides a certain sense of stability or direction, related to what George Perle sometimes referred to as a "centricity." In addition to the use of certain motivic and rhythmic profiles, what helps to guide and inform the movement in and through these various passages is the significant attention to counterpoint and voice-leading, how individual "voices" cohere in the vertical dimension while moving in horizontal real time. It is the detail in these sections that creates a certain sense of consistency in such tonal music. Not that Beck ever maps out every single step in a composition – no, he has stated that he relies upon and trusts his musical intuition to lead him to ideas and connections between those ideas before the Apollonian part of his brain steps in to analyze and examine what has emerged.

Cello Concerto

Cello Solo with Piano

"Coronation" has been designed for beginning string orchestra - composed in D major, it favors open strings and scale patterns suitable for younger musicians. The few passing dissonances are approached and left by step-wise motion. The music itself elicits the atmosphere of a 
royal procession.

Coronation

String Orchestra Score & Parts

The Sonatina for cello and piano was composed in 2024 in Louisville, Kentucky. Beck wrote the type of piece he would have liked to have played when he was performing on the cello in middle school and high school. This composition has three movements, any one of which may be performed separately for recitals or for contest purposes. The first movement (Prelude) is marked "With determination" and is in an A-B-A form. The music is both dramatic and lyrical. The second movement (Adagio) begins with the solo cello playing a pensive melody; this melody becomes the basis for the movement, appearing in various harmonic and contrapuntal guises. The final movement (Toccata) is primarily centered in a lively D major area. Marked "preciso," the energic interplay and syncopation between the cello and piano bring the entire Sonatina to an exciting close.

Sonatina

Cello Solo

Voice Subcategory

A group of friends and acquaintances gather for a cocktail party and start a vapid conversation.  Ultimately, it is revealed that this party from hell turns out to be literally from hell, and the party-goers are actually dead, engaging in a review of their trivial lives. Commissioned by Long Leaf Opera (NC), Review is Beck’s seventh opera.  The libretto is by Patricia Marx, based on a satire originally written by Ms. Marx for The New Yorker.  With seven principals (3 sop, mezzo, 2 ten, bari) and an optional SATB chorus, this comic work may be successfully performed with piano or with orchestra.
 
Review was one of three finalists in the 2010 National Opera Association’s New Chamber Opera Competition. Peabody Opera included it in its 2011-2012 season and it was also included in a program of scenes at the College Music Society’s 2011 annual convention in Richmond, VA. The video here shares a Halloween performance by Peabody Opera.
 
Review was previously included in the 2009 OPERA America and Houston Grand Opera New Works Sampler.  Following that successful showcase, Review was then produced by the Moores Opera Center at the University of Houston and later was given its New York premiere by the Center for Contemporary Opera in association with James Madison University. Review has since been produced across the country, with orchestra or piano alone. With a running time of 15 minutes, Review may be included in an evening of opera scenes or one-acts, provide an opening piece for a longer opera, or work as a contest entry.

Review

SSSATTB Full Score

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was a renowned American writer, poet, and critic, celebrated for her sharp, caustic wit, and social commentary. As a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table and a key contributor to The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, she excelled in short stories, satirical poetry, and Hollywood screenwriting (notably contributing to the 1937 "A Star is Born" and Hitchcock’s "Saboteur"). An active civil rights advocate, she later was blacklisted in Hollywood for her left-wing political views. This set of four songs was completed in 2026 while Beck was in residence at Copland House, Cortlandt Manor, New York, as a recipient of the Aaron Copland Award.

Dorothy Parker Songs

Soprano Solo

Elegy for piano and string orchestra (2020) was a finalist in the 2021 Alfred Schnittke International Composers’ Competition held in Lviv, Ukraine. This composition runs ca. 5” and is included on Beck’s 2023 recording, remember (neuma 183).
 
'Elegy' for piano and string orchestra is a moving piece masterfully interpreted by Sofia Session Orchestra. The melodies flow smoothly while the strings create an atmospheric depth.
- Amplified Magazine (Germany)

Elegy

"Beck's Sonata No. 2 for cello and piano is sweeping and lyrical, making a strong addition to the contemporary solo cello repertoire. The middle movement is especially moving and graceful." - Audiophile Audition
 
Beck's second cello sonata was composed in the fall of 1988, when he had first begun his masters studies at Duke University with Stephen Jaffe. It is a large, expansive work, both in its three-movement structure and emotional depth. The opening progression presents the harmonic structure and interrelationship of the three movements, which is based on enharmonic major thirds (Ab-E-C-Ab). The first movement, Animato, is centered in Ab but ultimately closes in an area focused in E. The second movement, marked Grave, unfolds in a type of broad arch form. It is primarily centered in a C minor area, but feigns a close in Ab (recalling the first movement's tonal center), before it shifts back to C minor. The final movement is a lively rondo (Allegro giocoso); as a tonal companion to the first movement, it is centered in E, but eventually travels back to the sonata's opening tonality, returning us to Ab/G# through an aggressive and syncopated coda.
 
Beck's particular tonal dialect and its underlying architecture grows out of a synthesis of tonal, modal, and nontonal practices, as those practices are broadly understood. This means his use of tonal areas described as being centered in C minor (for example) simply indicates that while "home" may be in the harmonic area historically understood and heard as being "C minor," there is little or no relationship to the functional use of that area, as "functional" is used in the Western classical sense. In other words, however a tonality may function in a given composition of his, its particular functionality is wedded to the context of the individual piece.
 
Sonata No. 2 for cello and piano was premiered at Duke University on 26 April 1989, by Fred Raimi (cello) and Jane Hawkins (piano). It was recorded by Elisa Kohanski (cello) and Rob Frankenberry (piano) in 2009 and is available on Beck's 2011 CD, IonSound Project (innova 797).

Sonata No. 2

Star Dance was composed for the piano and percussion duo Synchronicity, featuring Garah Landes (piano) and Gregory Landes (percussion). It was premiered by them at Christ St. Stephen’s Church on West 69th Street in New York City on 27 April 2015.
 
Completed in Louisville in September of 2014, the piece is revealed through a series of related, contrasting sections. The opening music is marked “calm” and features a freely-unfolding melody in the vibraphone. The character of the music soon changes in the next section, where the piano takes over the principal melodic drive and the accompanying percussion becomes more diverse. This fast, dance-like music is syncopated and playful. There is a return to the opening “calm” before the music moves in yet another direction, one marked “wistful.” This new music is simpler and more pensive than what had come before. But ultimately it is the lively dance music that takes over the composition, and energetically propels Star Dance home.
 
The percussion set-up for Star Dance requires: vibraphone, marimba, snare drum, two toms, bongos, hi-hat, sizzle cymbal, suspended cymbal, woodblock, bell tree, egg shaker, and two timpani. The piece runs ca. 10”.

Star Dance

Percussion Solo with Piano

Death of a Little Girl with Doves is an operatic soliloquy for soprano and orchestra based on the life of the French sculptor Camille Claudel (1864-1943). Hers is a story of Art, love, innocence betrayed, and the tragedy of a young woman's persecution for being imaginative and independent during a time when such characteristics were viewed as inappropriate and dangerous for women. Although created as a ca. 35-40 minute concert work, the subject matter also lends itself to being staged as a type of monodrama. Please note this is the chamber orchestra version of this composition. 
"[Death of a Little Girl with Doves] is a deeply attractive and touching piece of writing which I recommend urgently for its imperious melodic confidence, fluent emotional command and yielding tenderness. ... Imaginative sopranos with good diction and adventurous and capable music directors should be seeking out this [work]. Do not delay." - Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International 
[The audio clip is of the first movement only of the full orchestra version - the video offers a full performance of the full orchestra version]

Death of a Little Girl with Doves

Soprano Full Score

Concertino for two cellos and string orchestra opens with a type of brief fanfare in the solo cellos before the main theme is introduced in the strings. This lively, syncopated theme is developed and moves between the soloists and the ensemble before arriving at a calmer middle section. The initial rhythm of the motive here recalls the brief opening fanfare. This middle section closes with cadenza-like interplay between the soloists that brings a return to the opening material. The repetition of the opening is expanded to include another cadenza-like passage, before the movement ends with a rousing coda.
 
The second movement presents a slow, lyrical Interlude, the melody of which is related in part to the first movement’s middle section. This Interlude acts as both a substitute slow movement and as an introduction to the animated and energetic music that follows. This is dance music that grows progressively faster, from Allegro to Vivo, to più Vivo and beyond, until it flies to a sparkling conclusion.
 
Concertino was composed as a result of winning the Iowa Composers Forum 2006 Linn-Mar Double Concerto Commission Competition.  The work was premiered by the Linn-Mar Chamber Orchestra (Iowa), Joshua Reznicow, conducting, with soloists Carey Bostian and his student Sarah Malerich.
 
In 2017, following a slight revision of the work, it was recorded in Sofia, Bulgaria – this recording appears on Beck’s 2020 recording, by moonlight (innova 1051). This version was premiered 28 February 2019 in Mexico City by the Orquesta de Cámara de Bellas Artes, José Luis Castillo, artistic conductor, with soloists Luz del Carmen Águila and Adriana Carrasco. It was performed again by this group with the same soloists on 3 March 2019 at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música. The composer attended both of these performances and especially enjoyed that the final measures of the first movement were presented as an encore at the Conservatorio.
 
As it was presented in Mexico City, this composition provides an excellent programming companion to Vivaldi’s Concerto in G Minor for Two Cellos, RV 531.

Concertino

“… appealing and skillfully crafted … Beck writes in lush tonal harmonies … and the moody expressiveness of Beck’s writing is its own reward. The String Quartet No. 4, which leads off the disc, strikes me as most successful – the four movements are terse but finely balanced, and they call out tellingly to one another.”
– San Francisco Chronicle
 
String Quartet No. 4 is in four movements.  These four movements are then paired in a non-linear fashion.  The opening Allegro furioso is interrupted by a brief Allegretto, which acts more as an interlude to the fast music than as a complete contrasting section.  This more graceful music is, in fact, a foreshadowing of the third movement, and will be more fully developed when it returns at that time.  The second movement, Grave, is in the character of a hymn or a spiritual – the music from this movement will return towards the end of the last movement, both as a reminiscence, and as a part of a summary and closing of the entire work.  In addition, brief gestures from the opening movement attempt to break into the final closing bars, but the energy from these gestures is not enough to rouse the music at the end, which soon disappears in a tonal haze of floating harmonies.
 
String Quartet No. 4 was composed in Yorba Linda, California, from the Fall of 1999 to the Spring of 2000.  It was premiered by the San Gabriel String Quartet on 17 March 2001 in a concert of Beck’s works at California State University, Fullerton.  Recorded by that ensemble, it appears on Beck’s 2013 recording String Quartets (innova 867).

String Quartet No. 4

2 Violins, Viola, Cello Quartet

Rhapsody is scored for violin solo and a small orchestra: strings with harp plus wind quintet and percussion. The music begins quietly and soon the solo violin enters with a lyrical theme that features a prominent upper neighbor motive. This theme expands and develops until it returns an octave higher at the first climactic moment of the piece. The climax then fades and dissolves into the next section of the composition, which provides certain contrasting melodic material. This section then leads to an aggressive, second climactic moment, one that brings a return of the opening mood. The return features sustained bell-like harmonics in the violins, coupled with softly ringing tones in the harp and percussion. The solo violin presents some variations on the principal lyrical theme, followed by a restatement of the first climactic moment of the piece. This time the climax is extended into a short coda before the music ends with a sweeping flourish.
 
Running approximately 6 minutes, Rhapsody was premiered in Lviv, Ukraine, 5 November 2016 by the Lemberg Sinfonietta, Cesare Della Sciucca, conductor, with Mykola Haviuk, violin, in a festival of new music produced by KLK New Music.
 
The Louisville Orchestra, Teddy Abrams, conductor, gave the American premiere 11-13 October 2018 in Louisville, KY and New Albany, IN, with Robert Simonds, soloist.

Rhapsody

Violin Solo with Piano

Festival of Lights for treble chorus and piano.
 
In teaching both vocal and instrumental music to 5th-8th grade students, I soon became adept at arranging and composing pieces that would showcase their ranges and particular abilities. One little musical of mine, Turkeys on Strike!, was a local hit…
 
Well, one winter we were learning some Christmas songs in my class and one of my students reasonably asked why we sang more Christmas music than Hannukah music. I honestly replied that I was less familiar with Hannukah music, but if he had suggestions for me I would be glad to include those pieces in our class. Although my father’s family is Jewish, my mother’s family is Lutheran, with the end result being that I knew far more about Christmas than I did about Hannukah.
 
In any event, my student brought in a song folder from his Hebrew school and I integrated some of those selections into the class’s repertoire. But then I also chose to write a new holiday song for the students, one which involved simple counterpoint within their relatively untrained ability. Festival of Lights is that piece.

Festival of Lights

Unison/Two-Part Octavo

"One Summer Afternoon" is a lyrical, harmonically engaging composition designed for intermediate players.

One Summer Afternoon

Harp Solo Unaccompanied

Global Sections - CORE [DO NOT TOUCH]*

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