'Watery figuration in the piano and trills in the violin set a contemplative tone that expands into supreme, stunning lyricism. It is a small, late masterpiece.’ LA Times (Mark Swed) 11 December 2019
Availability
Score and part 0-571-52056-1 on sale
Programme Notes
Commissioned by Town Hall Symphony Hall and the European Concert Hall Organisation in memory of Lyndon Jenkins
This lyrical “morceau de salon”— written for Tamsin Waley-Cohen and Huw Watkins and dedicated to them— is made up of various kinds of musical reflection: melody reflected in its inversion; a six-note mode reflected in its complement; and between the three main parts of the piece, which are in a way varied reflections of each other.
There are some reflections in water, too: the main melody began as a response to Gauguin’s painting of a Breton woman swimming; and there is also, perhaps, an echo of the lonely underwater world of an ondine, eventually breaking the surface at the end of the piece.
“Reflection”, which lasts around eight minutes, was written at my home in Suffolk in August and September of 2016 and was first performed by the dedicatees on October 3rd of the same year at Town Hall, Birmingham.
© Oliver Knussen
October 2016
Reviews
‘Generous in spirit from its opening bars, the music is beautifully lyrical without sentimentality or cliché, deeply learned without aridity. “Reflection” in fact would sit comfortably alongside more traditional repertoire, and it deserves to be taken up widely by recitalists.’
The Boston Globe (Jeremy Eichler), 30 July 2018
'Watery figuration in the piano and trills in the violin set a contemplative tone that expands into supreme, stunning lyricism. It is a small, late masterpiece.’
LA Times (Mark Swed) 11 December 2019