related works
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Voice and piano
Scoring:
sopr-m pf
Scherzo no. 2 : per orchestra, opus 38, 1956-'57 / Léon Orthel
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
2fl fl(pic) 3ob 2cl cl(cl-b) 2fg cfg ad lib. 4h 3trp 3trb timp perc str
Tala : per orchestra, 1987 / Jan Rokus van Roosendael
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
pic fl fl(pic) 2ob eh 2cl cl-b 2fg cfg 4h 3trp 3trb tb 6perc hp pf str
Raving : for large orchestra and electronic dance pulse / Willem Boogman
Genre:
Orchestra
Subgenre:
Orchestra
Scoring:
pic 2fl 2ob eh 2cl cl-b 2fg fg-c 4h 3trp 2trb trb-b tb timp dr dr-b g-b str elec
composition
Black City : Concerto for violoncello and orchestra Nº 2 / Douglas Knehans
Other authors:
Knehans, Douglas
(Composer)
Contains:
Letter to a Friend—(Expressive)
River on Fire—(Scherzo)
It Will Be Rain Tonight—(Passacaglia)
You Asked What the Heart Can Carry—(Cadenza)
Midst of a Burning Fiery Furnace—(Finale)
Description:
My second cello concerto Black City sits in contrast in many ways to my first cello concerto Soar. My first concerto is in one long movement with rather conventional scoring and is about striving and our innate urge to overcome and grow.
My second concerto, in contrast, is first of all on a much larger scale or ‘bigger canvas’ than the first concerto being cast in five rather long movements, each with an internal intensity that links them and creates the narrative thread of the music. Much of this music is about degradation, erosion and loss. As with most of my music I mean these somewhat geological ideas as metaphors for internal psycho-emotional change that takes place within us. As we grow and change it is not always about gain and stability but can also be about loss, diminishment and structural change. The metaphor of a rich internal city slowly eroding gave rise to the title of the work. I was extremely fortunate to come across the amazing poetry of the young American poet Dave Lucas, whose take on the decaying Midwestern cities of the United States (where I was both born and now live) had in them many internal and external metaphors that seemed so appropriate to my work.
Each movement has an inscription taken from Mr. Lucas’s poems from the volume Weather, while each also has a different structure and character despite the narrative thread that links them.
Douglas Knehans