Soulmate
by Ka Nin Chan
- Instrumentation
- Cello
- Composed
- 2001
- Duration
- 6'
- Publisher
- Canadian Music Centre (unpublished, printed by CMC), solo cello version RSN 55560 (2001, rev. 2005); also for cello and string orchestra (RSN 55223) and cello and piano (RSN 55561)
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About this piece
Soulmate began as the middle movement of Poetry on Ice, music for figure skating that Ka Nin Chan wrote for the Guelph Spring Festival in 1995, where the string orchestra played the theme in unison. In 2001 the CBC commissioned a version for cello and string orchestra for Shauna Rolston, who premiered it at the Chan Centre in Vancouver with Mario Bernardi conducting, and Chan also arranged it for cello alone and for cello and piano. His note describes two people whose understanding is 'subtle, mutual, and wordless, like a pair of dancers on ice', and the cello carries one unbroken melody through expressive slow sections and lilting Grazioso passages in 6/8 before closing on the open C string. Rolston recorded the orchestral version on This Is the Colour of My Dreams, and David Hetherington recorded Soulmate for the CBC Records album Majestic Flair.
Technical overview
A lyrical solo that changes metre almost every bar (3/4, 2/4, 4/4, then 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8), starting Expressivo at quarter note = 60 with Più mosso, Grazioso and Misterioso sections later. It moves through bass, tenor and treble clefs and climbs into thumb position for sustained high notes near the end; earlier there are fast slurred runs in septuplets and quintuplets. Molto vibrato, sul tasto, portamento and a final glissando are marked, with dynamics from pp to fff.
Technical focus
- C String Notes
- Dynamics
- Glissando
- Grace Notes
- Hairpin Dynamics
- Legato
- Meter Changes
- Shifting
- Staccato
- Sul Tasto
- Tempo Changes
- Tenor Clef
- Thumb Position
- Treble Clef
- Triplets
- Vibrato