I composed this as part of a set of pieces back in November of 2008. I've only now managed to find a good WAV to MP3 converter and sound editor (i.e. the miracle that is Audacity).

Note that the computer playback doesn't always reproduce dynamics accurately, especially crescendos and diminuendos. Please bear that in mind.

Béla Bartók was a big name in music in the 20th Century. One of his calling cards was an atonal harmonization of folk music, which permeates his entire oeuvre - for good reason, as he was one of the founding fathers of the field of ethnomusicology, the study of music as part of culture. I've idolized that side of him for almost 2/3rds of my life, but only in the past six years have I managed to really appreciate his music.
I pay homage to him by using a folk melody - in this case, a song from the Chukchi culture - and harmonizing it with unusual chords. There's a focus on splitting up the octaves into three or four parts, i.e. into major or minor thirds, respectively. At one point, I have the song melody playing in cannon, with the right hand playing the same line a few beats after and a few octaves higher than the left hand - but what's interesting, is that I ALSO have the right hand playing an inversion of the subject (inversion here being having all the intervals flipped, e.g. a rising 4th becomes a falling 4th), and I try to harmonize these two right hand parts. It was no easy task, but I think it came out very well.