This is a piece for unaccompanied cello in three movements, the cedar-limbs; the vermillion border; and the terminus wreck.
The piece starts with a reinterpretation of the cello solo at the end of I wear you on my sleeve, a piano quintet from 2003. This music is the most lyrical of the piece. The second movement, the vermillion border, is also a look back at the past but here the reflection is on the cello music of Iannis Xenakis and is an aggressive centrepiece. The final movement is my attempt to find new music by fusing these two worlds together. The now retuned C string, very low, allows for wide dissonant interval and unsettling consonances with the piece ending with an almost folk-like melody on a sound like a distant double bass.
The title, intimacy and bleak landscape of this piece is inspired by poetry from Schneepart by Paul Celan. Particularly:
LILA LUFT mit gelben Fensterflecken,
der Jakobsstab überm
Anhalter Trumm,
Kokelstunde, noch nichts
Interkurrierendes,
von der
Stehkneipe zur
Schneekneipe.
LILAC SKY, yellow paned,
Jacob’s Staff above the
Terminus wreck,
lighting-up time, as yet
nothing intercurrent,
from stand-up bar to
snow bar.
Paul Celan(trans. Ian Fairley), from Snow Part (Schneepart), Carcanet, 2007