Song for the Earth
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Composed
- 2006
- Duration
- 5'
- Publisher
- Canadian Music Centre (unpublished, printed by CMC), RSN 60777, call no. MI 3213 R539so
Purchase or download
About this piece
The score of Song for the Earth is dated from Monday 20 November to Wednesday 22 November 2006, St Cecilia's Day. In her programme note Sylvia Rickard says she wrote it as 'a healing process' for 'our precarious Mother Earth', choosing the cello because it is her favourite instrument, and that she set out to show the earth's 'supportive, nurturing, and pleasing nature' rather than the damage done to it. Mark Rudoff and Laura Loewen gave the first performance at the Victoria Conservatory of Music in February 2008. A Molto cantabile in 6/4 gives way to a Leggiero with pizzicato, a free ad libitum passage over sustained piano chords, and a return of the opening tempo.
Technical overview
Opens in 6/4 at quarter note = 72 or slower, with 4/4 sections and an unbarred ad libitum passage. The line spends long stretches in treble clef and climbs to the A above the treble staff at ff, with wide chromatic leaps, grace-note sfz accents and fast thirty-second-note runs. It ends with a tremolo double stop played sul ponticello, then ordinario.
Technical focus
- Accidentals
- Double Stops
- Grace Notes
- Meter Changes
- Pizzicato
- Rubato
- Shifting
- Sul Ponticello
- Tempo Changes
- Thumb Position
- Treble Clef
- Tremolo