violin, cello and piano or clarinet, cello and piano
Duration: 10′
Friedrich Hofmeister Musikverlag
Commissioned by CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust
First performance 8 May | Catriona Scott (clarinet), Gemma Rosefield (cello), Michael Dussek (piano)
Programme note:
Cavatina at Midnight encloses, at its centre, a reference to the opening of the sublime Cavatina, the fifth movement from Beethoven’s String Quartet in Bb Major, Op 130. Shapes and shades of the long lyrical line are hinted at throughout Cavatina at Midnight which also brings together songs of another kind, two allusions to the nightingale; one drawn from the poem by John Keats, who wrote Ode to a Nightingale one springtime, under a plum tree in a Hampstead garden, and the other from the first live broadcast of birdsong in 1924, in which the cellist, Beatrice Harrison, played well-known songs in nocturnal duet with a nightingale in her garden. In the trio the clarinet takes an agile role, suggestive of birdsong, often with arpeggio motifs, and is supported by the lyricism of the cello. As I was writing the piece a blackbird sang at my window, not its beautiful, mellifluous evensong but an insistent F sharp which somehow found its way into Cavatina at Midnight.
Cavatina at Midnight was commissioned by the CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust and first performed by Catriona Scott (clarinet) Gemma Rosefield (cello) and Michael Dussek (piano) as part of the Hampstead and Highgate Festival on 8 May 2008 at Christ Church, Hampstead Square, London. © 2008, Cecilia McDowall
Cavatina at Midnight was commissioned by the CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust and first performed by Catriona Scott (clarinet) Gemma Rosefield (cello) and Michael Dussek (piano) as part of the Hampstead and Highgate Festival on 8 May at Christ Church, Hampstead Square, London . A version for violin, cello and piano was made shortly afterwards.
Review:
“Those threads are tied together in spellbindingly evocative writing for clarinet and cello, exquistely realized by Catriona Scott and Gemma Rosefield, ably accompanied by Michael Dussek at the piano.”
Evening Standard 2008
Link to Score:
https://www.hofmeister-musikverlag.com/cavatina-at-midnight.html
Link to recording: