Hymn (2nd Movement)
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Composed
- 2025
- Duration
- 10'45''
- Publisher
- Canadian Music Centre (unpublished, printed by CMC), RSN 82241, call no. MI 3213 K741hym. Composer's own cello-and-piano version of the second movement of Hymn for solo cello and full orchestra.
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About this piece
Elizabeth Knudson made this cello-and-piano version of the second movement of Hymn, her work for solo cello and full orchestra. The movement was inspired by a poem by Czesław Miłosz that begins 'There is no one between you and me', and it grows from a melodic fragment of the hymn 'O Love, How Deep', attributed to the fourteenth-century monk Thomas à Kempis. A long piano introduction over low pedal notes leads to the cello's entry on a held low C, and Knudson describes the music as growing 'from these pure, austere beginnings into something warm and passionate'.
Technical overview
A slow movement at quarter note = 63, mostly in 4/4 with occasional 5/4, 3/4 and 2/4 bars. The cello moves from long low notes through tenor clef into treble clef, sustaining lyrical phrases up to the F at the top of the treble staff, with one natural harmonic on the D string. There are no fast passages; the work is in tone, long bows, and smooth shifts into and out of thumb position.
Technical focus
- Bow Control
- Collaboration with Piano
- Hairpin Dynamics
- Harmonics
- Legato
- Meter Changes
- Shifting
- Tenor Clef
- Thumb Position
- Treble Clef