Graham Waterhouse(1962)

Jota Cromatica was written in early 2014 as a companion piece to the Sonata ebraica. The Jota is a Spanish dance in three-time, most commonly associated with the regions of Aragon and Navarra. In its original form it was accompanied by such instruments as bag-pipes, guitars, tambourines and castanettes. Liszt, among others, wrote a celebrated Jota for piano. The emphasis in this quasi-virtuosic concert-piece is primarily on a lively and robust dialogue between the two instruments. This is set against a continually shifting harmonic background, putting into question the nominally pivotal tonal axis of D. An introduction uses a toccata-like, alternating-hands figuration in the piano. Then, after a hesitant "false start", the dance begins, charaterised by strong accents and repetitive two-bar phrases. A second subject is more linear and lyrical, especially in the viola writing, - "chromatic" here in the side-stepping nature of the voice leading. The coda works itself into a well-nigh hispanic frenzy before the opening toccata figuration in the piano calls a halt to the proceedings and abruptly draws the work to a close.