for solo violin or clarinet (1998)
duration: 3’
GRT • 048 / 049
CD available
Mercurial
Marianne Rothschild, violin
Reed Music
YouTube
score available from
Australian Music Centre
note: this solo is also part of a larger collection – Occasional Pieces
program note
This small violin solo was written at 24 hours notice for the funeral of a friend. A first draft was discarded, not for musical reasons but because I couldn't imagine it for the occasion. But what can sound right for such an occasion? So I didn't write about death, I wrote about life and its continuity, before and after ourselves. Of our connection to a constant stream of life outside of our own contribution towards it. Musically speaking, this then may be heard as a kind of theme and variations, using repetitions within repetitions and looping intervallic patterns.
reviews
“Life Cycles gives Griffiths a moment to shape soaring phrases”
Kate Rockstrom, Readings Magazine, September 2022
“Griffiths’ playing of the unaccompanied Life Cycles with its meandering approach to following a compositional thought process is a delight.”
Alan Holley, Classikon, September 2022