Tree Spirit
by Leila Lustig
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Composed
- 2022
- Duration
- 10'45''
- Publisher
- Canadian Music Centre (unpublished, printed by CMC), RSN 81165, call no. MI 3213 L972tre
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About this piece
Leila Lustig wrote Tree Spirit, a 'poem for cello and piano', in July 2022 on commission from the cellist Pamela Highbaugh Aloni, who premiered it with pianist Jane Hayes at the University of Victoria in October 2023. Lustig's note follows a tree that rises from the soil, grows until birds nest in its crown, is felled by a logger and crashes to earth, then slowly rises again from its root. The music tells the same story: it begins on the cello's open C, held without vibrato over a slow piano bass line, climbs to fast passages high on the A string, breaks into snapped pizzicato and a downward run marked 'plummeting', and returns to the low C before rising to a final held note at ff.
Technical overview
Lento in 2/4 at quarter note = 50, later moving to 6/8 at dotted quarter = 72 and back. The opening asks for long low C notes marked non vib., with a drawn line telling the player when to add and remove vibrato; later sections move through tenor and treble clef to sixteenth-note runs up to the A above the treble staff and sustained tremolo double stops. Snap pizzicato at fff, pizzicato harmonics and long crescendos from ppp test both hands.
Technical focus
- Bow Control
- Double Stops
- Dynamics
- Extended Techniques
- Harmonics
- Meter Changes
- Pizzicato
- Tenor Clef
- Thumb Position
- Treble Clef
- Tremolo
- Vibrato