TOCCATA, for cello and piano (2009)
By Dylan Schneider
The work follows a three-part form. Subsequent to the piano’s opening teleportation from its stratosphere to its smoldering depths, both instruments conspire in a rhythmic and driving statement, slightly dance-like in character, divided into two halves by an outburst of the cello into its upper register. A bitter, hard-edged march interrupts, eventually giving way to an exaggerated “sawing” gesture in the cello—rapid alternations of pitches within a cluster of semitones—to the accompaniment of wild arpeggios spinning off in the piano, pitting the two hands of the performer against one another in contrary motion.
The second part, which bears the indication of “Recitative,” is slow and improvisatory in character. Here, the cello—perhaps like a soloist from a forgotten opera, lost somewhere in the distant universe—contemplates subjects of loneliness. Offering little comfort, the piano opens up vast caverns of sound around the cello, creating the effect of an immense chamber whose walls seem to faintly echo the lamentation of the soloist.
The third section opens with fast music, in which motivic fragments from various episodes of the first part begin to accumulate, like particles of space dust, into a swarm of activity. A second and final march concludes the piece in a syncopated and jubilant character.
The COLLISION COURSE: Toccata for Cello & Piano was premiered at the soundQUAKES Music Festival in Chicago on April 9, 2011.
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COLLISION COURSE:
Toccata for Cello & Piano (2009)
Instrumentation: cello, piano
Duration: 12 minutes
Premiere: April 9, 2011
Amy Briggs (piano), Paula Kosower (cello)
Program Note:
Early on in my conception of this work, an odd image plagued my thoughts: suppose you were able to play an ascending scale on the uppermost notes of the piano that, instead of running out of keys at the highest C, could continue on through a kind of wormhole, spitting your hand out at the instrument’s lowest register. Although an eccentric notion, I am drawn to the suggestion, implicit in this image, of a continuum, in which elements and qualities we tend to view as opposing may in fact be linked in unexpected ways. While the conclusion of the piano solo that begins the piece remains my most direct attempt to integrate this specific idea into the music, a connection between the extremes of register in both instruments is explored obsessively throughout.
