The Hardy Boys Variations

for two pianos

Duration: 9 min.

Theme: "Frank and Joe Hardy"
Var. 1 "The Secret Panel"
Var. 2 "Hunting for Hidden Gold"
Var. 3 "The Secret of the Caves"
Var. 4 "While the Clock Ticked"
Var. 5 "The Hidden Harbor Mystery"
Var. 6 "The Secret of Skull Mountain"
Var. 7 "The House on the Cliff"
Var. 8 "The Flickering Torch Mystery"
Finale: "Solving the Case"

Program Notes:

The Hardy Boys Variations is the result of a Prism commission by the Hartt School, and was premiered at the Hartt School on February 8th, 2006 by Anastasia Seifetdinova and Yu-Chen Shih.

The piece is based on the classic teen mystery series which chronicles the adventures of brothers Frank and Joe Hardy. Each book begins with the brothers stumbling upon some clue which leads them into a strange mystery involving smugglers, thieves, or other villains. Through luck and coincidence, the brothers soon find more clues that leads them to the villains hideout. There they are captured. The villain divulges his plan to the brothers, then leaves them to die in some sort of trap. The brothers miraculously escape, and the police arrive and arrest the villain. Afterwards, the brothers return home and everybody relaxes and recounts the adventure… 

The books in the series are not the result of a single author, but rather a collective of authors called the Stratemeyer Syndicate which wrote all the titles under the pen name Franklin W. Dixon. In order to create coherence in the series, a formula was devised that allowed the stories to sound similar in style even though they were written by different authors. As a youth I feverously read through the original 58 book series, and was captivated by the adventures of the brothers. Now as an adult, I pay homage to the series that has lasted over 75 years and captured the collective imaginations of numerous generations of young readers. The use of variation form made sense once I became aware of the “Hardy Boys” formula and the Stratemeyer Syndicate. After all, each book was nothing more than a variation on the preexisting formula. The titles of each variation was taken from a book list I procured online, using only the title of the book as a suggestive direction for the variation. The only exception to this is variation 8 – “The Flickering Torch Mystery”, from which I found a picture of the brothers playing guitars. I thought it would be good to fill in the music I imagined they were playing…

– Ryan Jesperson, Dec. 2nd, 2005.

The Hardy Boys Variations was premiered on February 8th, 2006 by Yu-Chen Shih and Anastasia Seifetdinova at the Hartt School in West Hartford, CT

Fall, 2012: Joseph Abad will premiere a new Saxophone Sonata.

Fall, 2012: Jordan Jacobson will perform fragments and memories in CT.

Spring-Summer, 2012: Jeux pour Jumeaux will be performed in San Francisco, CA.

Spring, 2012: Bobby Watson and the UMKC Big Band will premiere Rhapsody for Dean Moriarty in Kansas City, MO.

Spring, 2012: Ashly Evans will premiere Birdsongs in Houston, TX.

Spring, 2012: BA(da)SS will be performed by Ryan Ford in West Hartford, CT.

Spring, 2012: Jordan Jacobson will perform fragments and memories in CT.

Spring, 2012: Not Death, but Love will be premiered by Ineo Saxophone Quartet.

Spring, 2012: David Tayloe will perform A Page Out of Zen in CT.

May, 2012: The Invisible, Magic, Soccer Phone will be premiered in Middlefield, CT.

April, 2012: The UMKC Opera Dept. will perform portions of Songs from Behind the Curtain.

April, 2012: David Tayloe will premiere A Page Out of Zen in NY.

Feb. 17th, 2012: The 016 Ensemble will be perform Romanza for Alto Saxophone and Violin in Manchester, CT.

Dec. 3rd, 2011: Ryan defends his dessertation, Songs from Behind the Curtain at UMKC.

July 17th, 21st, 24th, 2011: Music Faculty from the Sebago-Long Lake Music Festival will perform ...and those seven dwarfs in a series of concerts in Western Maine.

June 16th, 17th, 23rd, 24th, 2011:Orphée Redux will be performed by Rhymes With Opera on their East Coast Tour (NYC, Baltimore, Hartford, Boston).

June 12th, 2011:Selection from Songs from Behind the Curtain will be performed at the John Duffy Composers Institute in Norfolk, VA.

May 13th, 2011: The Ineo Quartet will perform the 1st movement of Not Death, but Love on their Fischoff Competition program in South Bend, Indiana.

March 19th, 2011: The Ineo Saxophone Quartet will perform ...and love is fire... from Not Death, but Love at the NASA conference in West Point, NY.

Feb. 25th, 2011: I. Jest will be premiered by Robert Olson and the UMKC Orchestra in Kansas City, MO.

Feb. 14th, 2011: Hebdomas Squatinae will be performed at the Nebraska at Kearney New Music Festival.

EVENT HISTORY