A music beginning duo for violin and piano - 2001
duration 12 minutes
I. Con Fuoco - II. Desolato
This was written in the summer of 2001. The first of its two movements (sharing ideas with the Wild Nights! song from the cycle September, Just Septembers) is full of tumult, pent up energy and emotional intensity. Moments of dancing intrude, but in a listless, exhausted way.
The second movement is both poignant and desolate. Soaring melody is interspersed with ghostly, fleetingly nocturnal music. In many formal respects is an inversion of the 1st. It takes as its starting point a small quotation from Schumann's Child Falling Asleep.
Throughout the piece, the note E flat is an obsessive centre of gravity, indeed both movements end with its repeated calling, the first shouting, the second yearning. It is counterbalanced by its polar opposite, A and the two form the outline of a recurring three-note figure. This in turn defines the outline of various scale patterns which give the piece its shifting, yet paradoxically static tonality.
The première of this work was given by Andrew Smith and Wayman Chin at the Stamford International Chamber Music Festival in August 2005. It has since been played by Alberto Bologni with Giuseppe Fausto Modugno, Litsa Tunnah with Alissa Tavdidishvili, and Ostap Shutko with Miroslav Dragan.
PLEASE READ: THIS IS NOT A PUBLIC DOMAIN WORK. ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED. PRINTED COPIES ARE FOR EVALUATION PURPOSES ONLY
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Philharmonic Hall, Lviv, Ukraine in October 2011 1st mvt: Con Fuoco |
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Festival Campus Degli Incamminati in Modigliana August 2009 1st mvt: Con Fuoco |
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Stamford International Chamber Music Festival in August 2005 1st mvt: Con Fuoco |
This work is on CD (Sheva Contemporary SH82) by Ostap Shutko and Miroslav Dragan. It can be heard on the YouTube playlist via Naxos.
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