Program Notes

102 was written for the Schroeder Umansky Duo in the New York Youth Symphony Composition Program.

The piece can be divided into three sections. The first is labeled as “corrosive, scathing”. The fast trills, sharp accents, and sudden dynamic drops that build to fortissimo invoke a feeling of bitterness and resentment, the result of cruelty. This scherzo-like section ends abruptly, and after a short silence for the performers and the audience to catch their breath, the violin and cello play inversions of a unison gesture sul ponticello to provide a lingering sting before transitioning to the next section. Labeled as “clandestine, vigilant”, this slower section uses the same melodic material from the first, but gives a feeling of disillusion. While this sentiment is by no means a relief from the first section, there is a tinge of hopefulness that seems as though it is struggling to admit out of fear of returning to the corrosion. The music “speaks up” three times, using a jagged, striking motif from the first section. The first two assertions are silenced and covered by the disillusioned melody and accompanying ostinato. However, the third assertion is met with a slightly different response. The violin and cello play in unison inversions, similar to how they did in the transitions between the sections. It appears as though they are cooperating, even though juxtaposed by the building dynamic and harmonic tension as the music speeds in accelerando. Finally, the two voices separate with sinister statements of the theme, before arriving at a restatement of the first section. The first and third sections are nearly identical, but the resentment is much deeper and much more grieved. Although the second section implied a possible change or newness, the music has returned to square one, but scalding more than ever before. The piece ends similarly to how the first section ends, except the final notes are in the lower registers of the instruments rather than the higher registers, implying defeat rather than ascension.