Commissioned by pianist Nadia Shpachenko, Cretic Variations is a virtuosic fantasy on the simple rhythmic motif of long-short-long, known in poetry as a “cretic foot.” James Matheson (whose last name is itself a cretic foot) writes that the motivic alternation of long-short-long is enormously versatile and can be alternately thunderous or playful, melancholy or spirited. Matheson builds the variations into music that is extremely difficult to play, treading the line between the possible and the ...