Four Cello Duets

Program note

Four short pieces for two cellos, transcribed from THREE ENGLISH SONGS. Movements 1 (Playing), 2 (Offering), and 4 (Dancing) are therefore respectively inspired by poems of Fernando Pessoa, Rabindranath Tagore, and William Butler Yeats. Movement 3 (Meditating) is a non-programmatic addition and mostly consists of an inverted canon.

Playing is rather slow and melancholic, reflecting the mood of the original Pessoa poem. See Inspirations. Offering is about devotion and enthusiasm, while Meditating, as its title would suggest, is more intimate, intense, and even dark. Dancing is alternately elated and filled with longing, as Yeat's original text (To a Child dancing in the Wind) suggests.

Computer rendering

Details

Instrumentation

Two cellos

Duration

18'

Date

2024

Commissioned by

Commissioned by Ariane Lallemand and Anouk Legée

Sheet music

Available upon request

First performance

Awaiting premiere

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