Untitled: Three Miniatures

(untitled) was the name of a store in the SoHo section of Manhattan that sold nothing but art postcards -- thousands of them. I had three such postcards taped to the music rack of my piano and one day in early 1968 I decided to write a set of musical miniatures somehow depicting these paintings. The first, “Perro ladrando a la luna” by Miró, is the most literal. The opening sustained chord represents the horizon line, the rising clarinet duo is a ladder with five rungs (the piano chords). The piano tremolo at the end is the moon shining, and the violin, as the dog, barks at it. I consider this piece to be my Opus Zero, the first piece where I managed to achieve my musical goals.