Vitulatory Strains
Daniel Colson
About this work:
These Vitulatory Strains for solo violin are indeed vitulatory, if ever such a word existed, both in spirit, since the performer and listener will do best (ignoring any physical, perceptual, or conceptual strains the composer has created) to allow for a maximal degree of spontaneous joyfulness – i.e. to vitulate, and in origin, since without the vitula, the etymological ancestor of the violin, no such piece ever would or could have existed; and they are strains insofar as the melodic fragments, seemingly diverse because constantly varied through changes of register, dynamic, and articulation, are grouped into three large sections – marked off by relatively long rests, by the addition and removal of a mute, and by changes in tempo – the first of which begins and ends high, the second of which is further subdivided into a slower section that gradually sweeps up 3 octaves from the violin’s lowest note and a fast section that settles into a comfortable middle register, and the third of which expands outward while making constant motivic references back to the first.
Year composed: 2010
Duration: 00:08:00
Ensemble type: Solo instrument, non-keyboard:Violin
Instrumentation: 1 Violin