Elegy was composed in the fall of 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown. This work for piano and string orchestra is derived from the second movement of my early piano concerto from 1984. In its recent reimagined form, it was a finalist in the 2021 Alfred Schnittke International Composers’ Competition. The work was premiered at that competition on 1 April 2021 in Lviv, Ukraine.
Jeremy Beck “knows the importance of embracing the past while also going his own way. … [In] Beck’s forceful and expressive sound world … the writing is concise in structure and generous in tonal language, savouring both the dramatic and the poetic.” (Gramophone Magazine).