Quiet Shadows
- Instrumentation
- Cello
- Composed
- 1978
- Duration
- 4'
- Publisher
- One Omik Music (BMI); free PDF from the composer's website
Purchase or download
About this piece
Quiet Shadows is J. Kimo Williams's musical portrait of soldiers on guard duty in Vietnam, drawn from his own service there as a combat soldier. It began as a string quartet in which each instrument represents one soldier's thoughts, fears and memories through a night watch, focusing on stillness rather than combat. Williams has since arranged it for many solo instruments and ensembles. The solo cello version is subtitled 'A soldier on guard duty in Vietnam', and he asks the player to stand or sit facing the side of the stage, not the audience. He offers the scores free for study, rehearsal and live performance.
Technical overview
An unbarred-metre, freely paced solo in bass clef, highly chromatic, that moves from long tied notes to winding sixteenth-note and triplet lines. It lies between the low C string and the upper first-to-fourth positions on the A string. Dynamics, phrasing, articulation and tempo are left to the player, so it rewards a student who can shape a line without written instructions.
Technical focus
- Accidentals
- C String Notes
- Dotted Rhythms
- Shifting
- Syncopation
- Triplets