Shadow, sighs, and songs of longing

Joelle Wallach

About this work:

Joelle Wallach’s Shadow, Sighs and Songs of Longing, a concerto for cello and orchestra, was inspired by the elegiac beauty of Yaddo’s winter landscape and the tragic family history inscribed there:

The Trask family purchased Yaddo in the late 1800's as a healing summer retreat after the death of their first child.  Their surviving young daughter accompanied them to Yaddo and gave it it's peculiar name, a child's pronunciation of "shadow."  The darkness of their lives at Yaddo was deepened further by the deaths of that daughter and the two other children born to them there.  After all of her four children had died and her husband had met his own grisly and untimely death shaving in a private railroad car, Kristina Trask bequeathed Yaddo as a working retreat for artists.  Shadow, Sighs and Songs of Longing was written in the room to which Mrs. Trask retired for the last years of her sad life, and Shadow, Sighs and Songs of Longing is dedicated to her legacy.

It is a four-movement work for accompanied cello, each movement reflecting differently on what might have been the psychological landscape of Kristina Trask's memories, apparitions and reflections.

Version: vc, orch: 2*022* 2000 timp, perc(2)
Year composed: 1991
Duration: 00:17:30
Ensemble type: Orchestra:Orchestra with Soloist(s)
Instrumentation: 2 Flute, 2 Clarinet, 2 Bassoon, 2 Horn in F, 1 Timpani, 2 Percussion (General), 1 Strings (General),1 Strings (General) soloist(s), ,1 Cello soloist(s)
Instrumentation notes: vc, orch: 2*022* 2000 timp, perc(2) str / acc arr for pno

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