Alochona
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Composed
- 2023
- Duration
- 11'
- Publisher
- Canadian Music Centre (unpublished, printed by CMC), RSN 80884, call no. MI 3213 A865alo; score (c) 2023 Colleen Athparia
Purchase or download
About this piece
Alberta pianist and composer Colleen Athparia wrote Alochona in 2023 for the Land's End Chamber Ensemble, whose cellist Beth Root Sandvoss and pianist Susanne Ruberg-Gordon gave the premiere at the University of Calgary on 23 June 2023. The title is a Sanskrit word for a conversation in which different viewpoints are heard, and the piece stages a light-hearted argument between the two players. It opens like a morning raga, the pianist damping the low strings to draw out overtones beneath the cello's deepest notes; later the piano drifts off 'in 2 separate worlds' while the cellist improvises harmonics, grows 'Frustrated', spins the cello and taps rhythms on its body. A stubborn 5/4 figure that the composer hears as 'I told you so' keeps returning, and after a driving dance the cellist stands up at 'That's enough!' before a last pizzicato.
Technical overview
Starts in bass clef on the low C string and soon moves into treble clef, where melodies reach into thumb position on the A string. There are accented triple-stop chords, pizzicato passages, a short glissando and improvised harmonics, with staccato and off-beat rhythms against busy piano triplets. Meter changes often (4/4, 5/4, 7/8, 3/2), so secure counting and ensemble matter more than speed.
Technical focus
- C String Notes
- Chords
- Collaboration with Piano
- Extended Techniques
- Glissando
- Harmonics
- Meter Changes
- Pizzicato
- Staccato
- Syncopation
- Thumb Position
- Treble Clef