Lost and Found

Lost & Found for Orchestra is a six minute juex d'esprit in two parts with a coda. The first part is characterized by jerky lines and bravura chordal punctuations. It makes bold, effortful moves that get no place in particular. Two and a half minutes in, the music glides into a fleet toccata. This surge is not the direct consequence of or earned reward for the orchestra's sweat in the first part of the piece. The music simply catches a lucky tail wind. A brief lull and a final sprint brings the music to a clear cadence around the five-minute mark. The cadence is underplayed texturally (the final approach is made with a chamber ensemble of solo strings), but harmonically clear. The coda contasts and balances the lean virtuosity of this cadence (and the second part in general) with a big, self congratulatory tutti: everyone plays.

Lost & Found for Orchestra is the final version of a piece that began as sketches for the last movement of my cello concerto but its oddball narrative was inappropriate to the rest of that piece so I put it aside. I kept thinking about it, though, and wanted to find some home for the music, so I arranged my sketches into a piece for four electric guitars. As crazy as this sounds, since I'm a guitarist I could record all four parts and realize the piece in some form at least. It continued to strike me as orchestral; much of the play of color and energy that the guitar could only suggest could be fully explored in an orchestra. I am grateful to Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony for indulging my extravagant vision for such a short, playful piece.

– SM