88 minutes
2018

Having worked closely with Margaret Herlehy while she premiered my piece for oboe and wind symphony (2013), I was grateful for the opportunity to write for her again. This time, a more extended duration and a more intimate environment allowed for the exploration of new sounds and new relationships. A kind of “full flowering” of the idea I explored in Guitar, Clarinet, Piano, and Flute (2002), the three instruments here operate entirely independently. Yet, they absolutely need each other. In the same way that there’s something unexpectedly beautiful about the sound of a musical instrument when it is being played but not being played to be listened to (see the work for solo guitar from 2007—which, incidentally, has gone one step further and simply never been played), there is something special about a small number of instruments playing at the same time, but not playing “together.” Or, to be more precise, there is something that can’t be captured in any other way when multiple instruments dedicate total concentration to the execution of their own parts while still allowing space for each other.