Merely a Mockery of Spring
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Composed
- 2023
- Duration
- 2'30''
- Publisher
- Canadian Music Centre (unpublished, printed by CMC), RSN 80553
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About this piece
Elizabeth Knudson, an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, wrote this short piece for cello and piano in 2023 and conceived it as a miniature chamber work. Its title comes from a line in a cycle of winter poems by the American poet Robert Pack, and her own recording lists it as part of a Winter Suite. Marked 'gently', it opens with the piano alone, playing a winding eighth-note figure over held bass notes, before the cello enters with a long, quiet line; it ends on a held pianissimo note under a fermata. Cellist Jennifer Moersch and pianist Tina Chang recorded it in summer 2023 with support from the Canadian Music Centre's BC Region.
Technical overview
A slow piece at quarter note = 66 with no key signature, written in bass clef throughout, with the metre shifting among 3/4, 4/4, 5/4 and 6/4. The cello line is built from tied half notes and slurred pairs of eighth notes, full of accidentals, and climbs to the E above middle C, so it needs secure shifts up the A string. Dynamics run from pp to f with long hairpins, and the cellist has to count rests while the piano carries the music.
Technical focus
- 2 Note Slurs
- A String Notes
- Accidentals
- Collaboration with Piano
- Dynamics
- Hairpin Dynamics
- Legato
- Meter Changes
- Shifting