The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition is held every four years in Fort Worth, Texas, and for each competition, a new test piece for solo piano is commissioned that each contestant is required to interpret.

The 1985 test piece, “Fantasia on an Ostinato” by American composer John Corigliano, was first performed on today’s date. It was inspired by a famous repetitive passage in the slow, second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, as Corigliano explained:

“Beethoven’s near-minimalistic use of his material and my own desire to write a piece in which the performer is responsible for decisions concerning the durations of repeated patterns, led to my first experiment in so-called minimalist techniques.

“I approached this task with mixed feelings … for while I admire [minimalism’s] emphasis on attractive textures and its occasional ability to achieve a hypnotic quality (not unlike some late Beethoven), I do not care for its excessive repetition, its lack of architecture and its overall emotional sterility.

“In my ‘Fantasia on an Ostinato’ I attempted to combine the attractive aspects of minimalism with convincing structure and emotional expression … [climaxing] in a return of the obsessive Beethoven rhythm and, finally, the appearance of the Beethoven theme itself.”

John Corigliano (b. 1938) — Fantasia on an Ostinato (Nina Tichman, p.) Naxos 8.559306