Update Title: 946831A5-73BF-40E3-AA01-4769D79B5290

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Refuge, for cello and piano, was commissioned by Rajan Krishnaswami.  When Rajan approached me about writing this work, I said that I had already written a piece for cello and piano - but on reflection, discovered that I could find ideas for another one!

It was mostly composed in the beautiful town of Breckenridge, Colorado, at 9600 feet high in the Rockies, and completed in August 1998.   I have gone there several times to compose, far from the turmoil of my everyday life, so I suppose it is sort of a refuge for me.  I was also thinking of a beautiful but disturbing book by Terry Tempest Williams, called Refuge, and a mis-remembered line of poetry.  The line, from Edna St. Vincent Millay's On Hearing a Symphony of Beethoven, is in reality "Music my rampart and my only one" but one of my students had given it to me with "refuge" instead of "rampart", and that's how I've alway thought it - sorry, Ms. Millay.

David Stock

The first movement is full of syncopation and repeated sixteenth note motifs, giving it a rhythmic energy that is very American in flavor.  The form is a straightforward Sonata Allegro (origination from the 1700's); the harmonic language is uniquely identifiable as that of David Stock, who has developed a signature style that is both innovative and palatable.  The second movement employs wide-open tenths for its harmonies, expounded by the piano in short but insistent notes, over which the cello soars with lyrical melodies in quintessentially cellistic style.  The last movement is perhaps the most definitive of the title Refuge.  It uses very expansive harmonies in the piano spanning a wide range, and a meandering, contemplative theme in the cello, which gives a sense of relief and rest.  The energetic themes of the first movement are brought back, transformed, while maintaining a hint ot their original intensity.

Rajan Krishnaswami

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