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Duration: 16 minutes

NIGHT RUBRICS  (1990)
Phantasy for Solo Cello

1. Nocturnes
2. Envoi
My two movement phantasy for solo cello, Night Rubrics, was composed in 1990 on commission from Angela Schwartz. I intended the somewhat enigmatic title to suggest the sort of fleeting yet vivid thoughts that race through one's mind late at night when sleep seems to be elusive. In such a half-asleep state the merest noise arising from the outside world can generate an entire chain of unexpected thought, perhaps then only to be interrupted by a completely unrelated idea or emotion. And yet this sequence of disjointed thoughts can seem at the same time to have its own crazy logic. This work then is a portrayal of such a state of mind, the various independent thoughts differentiated musically by texture and timbre as well as by thematic material, and combined in an asymmetrical, free-associative way.

Recorded by
Angela Schwartz on
New World Records
80461-2