Tag: violin

Lost Lake

6 min.

Lost Lake, for piano trio, was inspired by two beautifully unrelated sources: a verse of 17th-century Japanese poetry by Matsuo Basho, and a couple of melodic phrases from a work by 12th-century abbess and composer Hildegard of Bingen.

These two ideas came together in the barren month of November, a time when everything seems pared down to its most essential parts. Somewhere in this bleak landscape though, I believe is something pure– a vision, perhaps.

“The moon glows the same:
It is the drifting cloud forms
Make it seem to change.”

-Matsuo Basho

Lost Lake received its premiere as part of Vancouver Pro Musica’s Sonic Boom Festival, with Reg Quiring- violin, Luke Kim- cello, and Noel McRobbie- piano, on March 14th, 2025, at Pyatt Hall, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Sheet music for this piece is available through the Canadian Music Centre:
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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

September Songs (string quartet arrangement)

two violins, viola & cello

12 min. 45 sec.

September Songs was originally written for erhu quartet (two erhu, viola, and cello)– this is an arrangement of the same piece, for string quartet (two violins, viola, and cello).

The piece is comprised of three movements: “The Hummingbird”, “To the Rising Moon”, and “Tunnels of Light”. The first movement, “The Hummingbird”, captures the light, delicate movements of these tiny feathered creatures. Featuring trills, tremolo, quick rhythmic patterns, and short melodic phrases, the energy of this movement leads into something more calm and a bit mysterious in the second movement.

“To the Rising Moon” opens with the first several notes of a Gregorian plainchant melody found in the “Graduale Romanum” (c. 8th century). This melody develops gently, making use of canonic phrases, and the idea of mirror images—as the moon rises to its peak in the sky, before sinking again behind the trees. This movement was also inspired by a short work by the 13th century poet and mystic, Rumi:

“There is a way
From your heart to mine
And my heart knows it
Because it is clean and pure like water

When the water is still like a mirror
It can behold the Moon.”

This gentle interlude melts back into the energy of the third movement, “Tunnels of Light”. Inspired by the ongoing movement of clouds in the sky on an overcast day, and the fleeting moments where the sunshine suddenly bursts through in brilliant, colourful rays– there are several short melodic and rhythmic motifs at work in this movement, combined and recombined playfully.

September Songs was commissioned by Vancouver-based erhu player, Lan Tung, and its creation was funded with the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.


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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.

Anagrams for November

beaches, babes, heads, cafes—

each faded, deaf,

each sees seas— ages,

ages, faded, dead

 

Anagrams for November was written especially for the Vancouver Miniaturist Ensemble. The alto flute spells out the musical anagrams of this collection of words (in concert pitch), while the viola provides some counterpoint, creating a breathy dialogue between the two parts.

The piece was edited again in 2017, to create a new arrangement for tenor recorder and violin.

 

  • Premiered by the Vancouver Miniaturist Ensemble (in version for alto flute and viola), at the Western Front, Vancouver, 10 December 2007.

 

  • Performed (in version for tenor recorder and violin) by XelmYa at “Klangräume”, St. Thomas Church, Berlin, Germany, July 2, 2017.

 

Sheet music (for both versions) is available through Syrinx Press:

https://elizabethknudson.ca/syrinx-press