Seven Etudes a due (1973)

Viola and Cello – 15 mins.
Publisher – Seesaw Music

Audio

Score (Free Download)

Program Note

Seven Etudes a due (1973) for viola and cello are more than just technical studies, although each piece does present the performers with a number of technical problems stemming from the hybridization of traditional and “extended” string techniques. More important is the “a due” aspect of the etudes. Each piece explores a different kind of ensemble relationship between the performers, presenting a variety of musical challenges. The first etude, marked “violently,” evolves from a rugged opening statement with striking tension contrasts into an intense struggle for control of a syncopated beat. The second etude is a declamatory recitative for cello against the viola’s whirring backdrop. In the third etude, this whirring is transformed into a dialogue of scurrying scale-like shapes. Etude four has a free introduction, and then proceeds with a mechanically precise succession of regular eighth-notes which bounce back and forth between the instruments. In etude five, the players break loose from this mechanization into a succession of overlapping surrealistic events built around various ways of playing chords on string instruments. The exuberance of this etude is sharply contrasted by the dark, earthly sighs heard in the sixth etude. In the final etude, the music rises to a chance interweaving of melodic fragments, and finally takes on the mysterious, other-worldly character of the music of the spheres.