Latticework

Part I
Ornament I
Long Strands
Flicker I
Dervish
Ornament II

Part II
Flicker II
Mime
Ornament III
The Silk Spinner
Flicker III

The assignment, as it was presented on the phone now a while back, was tough: create a major work lasting some twenty minutes for (the classic treble/bass string duo, for which, interestingly to me, there are relatively few works, and yet still, it’s only) two players. But among those few pieces are the masterworks of those like Ravel and Kodály, who both do incredible things with very large orchestras, but who were able to give a very distinctly honest (in my opinion) essence of themselves, writ small, clear and direct.

I also thought of those like Berg, Bartók, and Dutilleux, for whom the size of an ensemble was not an impact on the scope – be it structural, spiritual or psychological – of the pieces they composed; one could argue rather the opposite in pieces like the Lyric Suite, the String Quartets, or Ainsi la Nuit, respectively. I thought of the overlapping range of these two instruments – the violin’s lowest string sounds a pitch below the cello’s highest. And I began working with ideas of interweaving as abstractly as possible, and images of twisting shapes, veins on tree leaves, spiders creating intricate webs, and any number of ideas in textiles – threads, stitches, machines like looms – permeated the early footprint of the piece. The way the players (for me an equal-privilege, equal-responsibility pair throughout) interact with each other rests on these mental images.

The result is frankly a little burdensome to describe!—I tend to think that roadmaps have their place but it’s not in the car while, say, the Grand Tetons are the view out of the passenger window. I think the view is the point in music (and in Wyoming), but all the same: one could say this piece has two sections and be correct; one could say six, and one could say ten. While four of the named movements might be self-contained, they aren’t really there to stand on their own – they play a role in the structure of each Part. And two kinds of music that I’ve named Ornament and Flicker do lots of returning and bookending as the piece progresses. The music of Ornament, presented in differing textural settings upon each return, is essentially static; Flicker is dynamic and follows a fluid, musically developmental path. The ways these many musical objects work together each play out differently, and at different rates, over time – each gear and rotor in the engine is spinning at an independent speed, but we plan our best to arrive together.

Latticework is dedicated to Leila and Paul, for whom craft and passion (in performance and in their beings) are as deeply intertwined as any two to ever pick up the instruments.

-Sean Shepherd