Duration: 19’
Instrumentation: flute and piano
Performance Note:
“When your idea for a piece is heading in one direction but the music is suggesting taking a different path, who do you follow?”
That question (or, rather, the principle it embodies; I’m paraphrasing the quote) emerged several years ago in a chat I was having with the composer Jörg Widmann about Trauermusik, a piano concerto he’d written for Yefim Bronfman and the Boston Symphony. In that instance, Widmann had followed the course the music seemed to be setting out for him and a projected four-movement keyboard showpiece turned into a mammoth, through-composed, half-hour-long journey through some dark valleys.
A similar (though less fraught) process marked the creation of this Serenade. The original plan was for something sober: given the violence, absurdity, and dysfunction of our world and times that seemed the proper route to go.
But the piece didn’t agree. What emerged, instead, was something rather in the opposite vein: music that’s lighter in mood, often playful, impish, and ever lyrical. We need the carefree, benevolent sun, too—not just glowering storm clouds, the music seemed to suggest (though, as you’ll hear, the proceedings don’t entirely avoid the shadowlands).
As such, it’s perhaps an even better showcase than I’d originally planned for my colleague, Tracy Kraus, for whom the Serenade was written and to whom it’s dedicated.