Little Suite for Solo Cello (2001, rev. 2005)
Also available for solo viola.
Duration: 8’
Movements:
Score excerpt
Premiere:
Chao-Chun Liu, cello
Griswold Hall, Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore, MD
Spring 2002
Performers in audio recording: Recording from the premiere
Program Notes:
I composed this Little Suite as my first experiment with writing either for strings or for a solo instrument that wasn’t piano. I wanted to try writing each short movement in a different style, utilizing different techniques idiomatic to the strings. The first movement, “Allegro,” features lyrical, melody, scalar lines and a clear ABA form. The second movement “Waltz” originally featured a fiendishly difficult passage of parallel thirds (executed stunningly well by premiere performer Chao-Chun Liu, 17 years old at the time of the premiere), which I revised in 2005 to be much more instrument-friendly. The third movement “Adagio” also featured parallel thirds, but to complicate matters even more, the cellist is instructed to pluck not one, but two strings with his or her left hand while simultaneously fingering the double stop and bowing. (I still remember with great fondness when Chao-Chun came to my room a few weeks after receiving the music, pointed to this movement, and told me, “I think I understand it now,” and proceeded to play it with incredible accuracy and emotion. This is still my favorite movement from this Little Suite, as I’m particularly proud of the expressivity of the language.) The final movement is a barn-burner of rapid bowing, glissandi, tremolos and other special effects.
— August 2010