Foxtrot

In the 1970s PANCHO VLADIGEROV created a series of piano pieces. He dedicated some of them to pianists who were close to him artistically: he published three short pieces, Op. 64, with the dedication "To my Alexis Weissenberg"; he dedicated the pieces, Op. 65 and 66 to Ivan Drenikov; Op. 68 to Nikolai Evrov; Op. 69 and 70 to Krasimir Gatev. Parallel to these pieces, in 1976 and 1977 he transcribed pieces for two pianos written for solo piano either during his student years in Berlin or a little later. These are mostly characteristic dances, such as: Fantastic Waltz, Swedish Dance (the music to August Strindberg's play Dream Play, from 1921), Bilyana - Bulgarian Dance Op. 23, No. 6, Horo staccato without opus, Big Khoro, Mar Dimitro le, Op. 23, No. 2, The Dancer from the East, Chimmy de concert, Romance and Cake- Walk, and among them the 1925 FOXTROT without Opus for solo piano, with an original adaptation for two pianos from 1977. The orchestral transcription of the piano piece was made by his student Milcho Leviev. Vladigerov's genius in the piano genre is undisputed. The music of his pieces flows naturally and freely, it is charming, with a sense of humour, rich in melody and harmony, in which his pianistic, improvisational talent and sense of balance of form shine through. Vladigerov's family called Foxtrot "the first Bulgarian jazz piece". In fact, the piece has more of a Bulgarian sound, typical of Vladigerov's style, than "American jazz". The reason for this lies in the content of the word "foxtrot," which was incorporated in the 1920s and 1930s, precisely the period when the composer turned to dance. Back then "everything was foxtrot" and indiscriminately so any dance in 4/4 was defined in a vigorous tempo and with a slight bounce or a little slower and with some swing, which was more typical of his style. The two versions of the foxtrot - faster and slower - are also in practice on Vladigerov's pieces: usually the piano versions for solo piano and two pianos are played slower, and the orchestral version is played faster.