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.
