falling, falling from far afar ...
for viola

       

‘falling, falling from far afar…’  borrows its title from a line in Rilke’s ‘Autumn’.  The core of this composition is a free rendering for viola of an improvisation by Okura Shonosuke that combines otsuzumi strokes (hand-held drum) and kakegoe (shouts used in performances of Japanese music).  The opening section presents sequences of melodic fragments distantly evocative of a Handel aria,  interspersed with pizzicatos figures, that anticipate the largely percussive character of the Noh-theatre inspired music that makes the central section of this work. The closing section returns to the Handelian features of the opening.

S.M.