Violin Diptych 2020

Program Note by Samuel Adams

I began work on Violin Diptych in March 2020, not too long after Oakland, where I compose, was put on mandatory lockdown. The subsequent rapid succession of cancelations and postponements recalibrated my musical priorities; the large orchestral work I was penning at the time seemed like an impersonal, slightly irrelevant task, music that might not take its maiden voyage for several years. I chose to instead focus my attention on creating small, nimble pieces—not on commission, but out of an organic desire to directly connect with my closest collaborators. This is to say: Violin Diptych emerged out of friendship and a need to continue to write, play, perform, and connect during these difficult times.

It was my every intention to keep the form consistent with other diptychs—mostly visual—that come to mind: from Medieval religious diptychs to more contemporary examples like Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych, all of which relate to one other vis-a-vis their two-panel, hinged construction, and whose uncomplicated division invites (and sometimes demands) a close study of difference.

The two movements of my work, though different on the surface, possess the same proportions and harmonic character. The first movement, Playing Changes, is a floating soliloquy for the violin only. Composed of long, cresting lines, the music suggests a prolonged suspension, like an aria in search of gravity. The second movement, Changes Move, propels the music forward. The piano, coloring the lines of the violin, casts a resonant shadow above which the violin plays a series of searching, cycling gestures.

- Samuel Adams

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