Mutations
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Composed
- 1972
- Duration
- 18'
- Publisher
- The Avondale Press, AvP 76 (1992, revised 2006; ISMN 979-0-706041-76-6); Canadian Music Centre RSN 56967, call no. MI 3213 P419mu
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About this piece
Barbara Pentland wrote Mutations in 1972 on a commission from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for Eugene Wilson and Robert Rogers. It is one of the works in which she used 'aleatory zones', passages enclosed by broken lines where the players take a given set of pitches in order and then repeat and combine them freely. The score also asks for quarter tones, wide vibrato narrowing to normal, sul ponticello, and notes played on the strings inside the piano. An Andante drammàtico opening gives way to a Tempo giusto section and a Doppio movimento, Allegro animato, and the piece ends with the cello's harmonics fading to niente over sustained piano chords.
Technical overview
Moves among bass, tenor and treble clefs, with frequent pizzicato and arco changes, left-hand pizzicato under trills, arpeggiated pizzicato chords, sul ponticello and sul tasto, and quarter-tone inflections. The aleatory zones need confident free pacing against the piano, and the close uses natural and artificial harmonics at pp. About 18 minutes.