Day 25

Hey! One video, one new PDF, and the same four PDF’s.

New Download:

unit 6 practice log

Downloads:
4 previous ones, just in case you any of these again.

practice checklist 1 - broad strokes
practice checklist 2 - mid-range
practice checklist 3 - prism
practice checklist 4 - detailed

Today’s Recommended Listening:

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023)
7 Butterflies - II.

(Solo Cello)

[YouTube] - 2 minutes
Anssi Kartunnen

Kaija Saariaho was a leading voice of her generation of composers, in her native Finland and worldwide. She studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she lived from 1982 on. She received the Grawemeyer Composition Award and 2 Grammys. She was a personal favorite composer and when she passed away, I organized a 6-concert retrospective of her music (with 22 performers) in Napa through New Music Decanted.

She wrote a number of operas and her final opera is already considered to be one of the great operas of all time. She wrote multiple cello concertos, a number of other works for cello - many of them I was honored to give the US premiere of at the festival - and an incredible amount of chamber music in various configurations.

This piece, Sept Papillons, is a favorite of mine and I still consider it to be the reigning masterpiece for solo cello of the 21st century. In its seven short movements, not only do we hear the shimmering butterfly effects, but the cellist visually becomes the butterfly through flapping of the bowarm (as in this movement) or unusual left hand Thumb-Four harmonic trills, to the percussive effect of the left hand alone similar to the flapping of the wings of the butterfly.

We owe so much of her output to the friendship of Anssi Kartunnen and Saariaho - he has been a constant champion of her work and she wrote at least a dozen pieces that I know of with him as the premiering cellist. These sort of friendships over time contribute so much to the repertoire of every instrument. Kind of neat.

What to explore next:

  1. Kaija Saariaho | Prés for Cello & Electronics
    [YouTube - my friend Natalie Raney’s recording]

  2. Kaija Saariaho - Notes on Light for Cello and Orchestra [Anssi Kartunnen]

  3. “Mystery Variations” for Anssi Kartunnen
    [40 composers wrote variations on a theme suggested by Saariaho for his birthday]

See you tomorrow!
—Eric