Retrospectrum

The dedication at the front of the score of Retrospectrum reads "in memory of my parents" and in a note to accompany the first recording (Largo 5128), the composer wrote that "the piece…depicts on a miniature scale, the ups and downs of their lives". In the same note, he implied that the work had been partly inspired by a performance of Schoenberg’s late String Trio at the Berlin Festival in 1987. The deeply autobiographical nature of that work undoubtedly left it’s mark on Retrospectrum, which with its use of quotations from Goldschmidt’s own Chronica and Cello Concerto, is surely as much to do with the composer’s own experiences as those of his parents. Cast in one continuous movement, the work alternates passages of turbulence and tenderness, eventually finding resolution in a characteristically eloquent coda.