A Shelter for Imagining

solo violin
2023

Duration 5′
Instrumentation violin
First Performance TBC; Marie Radauer-Plank
Recording coming soon!

Charlotte has a worldwide, exclusive publishing agreement with Birdsong
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Taking J. S. Bach’s second Sonata Grave as my starting point, I worked to create something openly simple and honest. To be inspired by such remarkable, timeless music, presents the composer with both a delightful and enormous challenge. I conceived the piece akin to dreaming Bach’s music; tangentially re-creating it through my ears and imagination. Bach’s Grave, if you will, forms a backdrop, a shelter to the piece.

In this particular movement of Bach, shafts of light seem to strike through. I imagine myself looking out through a window towards the source of the light – sunlight or moonlight, it appears not to matter, yet, paradoxically, if it is daytime, it is all the more hidden. Within this intimate space resides a private conversation where speech and thought transmute into music. Delicate turns of attention, threads of consciousness unravel. The inner voice of the solo instrument is alone, tender, reminiscing….  

Bach’s Sonata provided the harmonic starting point, specifically the moving ‘bass line’ of the Grave, mapping the lowest points and using these as material to form the melodic core of the new work. Rhythms also feature. Important too are the distinct voices in Bach, the ever-present counterpoint; even in a work for a solo instrument there is dialogue, a musical conversation.