Opus number: op. 112
Title: Serenade No. 4, Walk That Lonesome Valley
Instrumentation: Violin, Clarinet, and Piano
Written for: Zodiac Trio and the Boston New Music Project
Date written: 2011
Length: ten minutes
Premiere performance: February 3, 2012, The Zodiac Trio: Vanessa Mollard, violinist; Kliment Krylovskiy, clarinetist; Riko Higuma, pianist. Lawrence and Alma Berk Hall, Berklee College of Music.
Subsequent performances: August 19, 2012, Zodiac Trio, Cannongate Kirck Edinburgh. Edinburgh Festival. August 20, 2012, Zodiac Trio, City Hall Recital Hall, Candelriggs, Glasgow, Scotland
Program notes: This ten-minute work was written for the Boston New Music Project and the French trio, the Zodiac Trio. The fast- slow-fast three-movement structure is based on the old American folk song “Walk that Lonesome Valley” that was popularized by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. The movement titles, Overtures-Invitation-Chase, allude to the romantic subtext of the serenade.
The music, for the most part, is thoroughly chromatic and is based on my own 116-note atonal melody. In the first and last movements, however, this long melody is interrupted by the music of the folk song creating surprising contrasts and comic effects. The writing of all of the parts is virtuosic and demanding to execute.
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