Rebecca Oswald presents thirteen formidable solo piano tunes that conjure vivid stories fueled by the artist’s passion....A masterful technique that give[s] the impression of a full orchestra....

— Raj Manoharan, RajMan Reviews

Rebecca Oswald

Whereas

thirteen songs for solo piano

The Whereas songbook is a concept album of thirteen neoclassical pieces for solo piano written in 2011. The songs’ emotive content ranges from nuanced to dramatic, romantic to tragic, introspective to celebratory. All of the songs have clear form and structure; several use compound or unusual meters, and one has a strict left hand ostinato throughout. The harmony is primarily tonal or triadic with occasional key center shifts.  Sometimes the melodies appear in the left hand or are shared between the two hands. A few of the pieces require sostenuto pedal. The book includes several prefatory pages: information about technique and markings, individual song difficulty rankings ranging from VI to VIII out of X, and a list of similarly ranked classical repertoire pieces for comparison.