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2005/2020

Suddenly Cello

for violoncello and piano

Buy the Score & Part
Program Notes

Work Details

Duration:

ca. 4 minutes

Publisher:

Biscardi Music Press No. B48-20-1

Distributer:

Theodore Front Musical Literature, Inc.

Sample Pages
Dialog window
Cover of a Naxos CD titled "A-Z of String Players by David Milsom"

Program Notes

Suddenly Cello is an arrangement for violoncello and piano of The Viola Had Suddenly Become a Voice, for viola and piano, originally written in memory of Jacob Glick, internationally recognized violist and teacher.

The original title was suggested by a passage from Andrea Camilleri’s mystery, Voice of the Violin (2003), translated by Stephen Sartarelli, in which Inspector Montalbano becomes aware of a violin that “had suddenly become a voice, a woman’s voice, that was begging to be heard and understood. Slowly but surely the notes turned into syllables, or rather into phonemes, and yet they expressed a kind of lament, a song of ancient suffering that at moments reached searing, mysteriously tragic heights.”

Suddenly Cello takes as its departure a quote from the last movement of Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47 (1842). In Suddenly Cello one thing becomes another: there is a transformation from Schumann to Biscardi, and the violoncello moves out of a chamber texture into a solo role.