Ripples
- Instrumentation
- Viola, Cello
- Composed
- 2019
- Duration
- 8'
- Publisher
- Canadian Music Centre (unpublished, printed by CMC)
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About this piece
Ripples is a duet for viola and cello that Karen Sunabacka wrote in 2019 for Ames Asbell (viola) and Karla Hamelin (cello) of Texas State University, with funding from Texas State and Conrad Grebel University College. Asbell and Hamelin premiered it on 28 October 2019 at the Texas State University Performing Arts Center in San Marcos. In her programme note Sunabacka calls the piece 'a celebration of women' that 'explores our connections and the beautiful and life-giving waterways around which we live and thrive'. The two instruments trade sustained melodies over rippling arpeggios and pizzicato patterns, so the cellist plays accompaniment as well as melody.
Technical overview
A single movement of about 8 minutes, opening at minim = 50 in 3/2 and later moving to 2/2 and 4/4 at a faster crotchet = 100. The cello alternates pizzicato and arco, plays sustained tenor-clef melodies in the middle positions, and drives a long central section of slurred sixteenth-note arpeggios across all four strings that end in natural harmonics. There are also glissandi, triplet figures shared with the viola, and soft hairpin dynamics from pp to f.
Technical focus
- Harmonics
- String Crossings
- Shifting
- Legato
- Pizzicato
- Meter Changes
- Hairpin Dynamics
- Dynamics
- Ensemble Skills