Shroud (2015)

about

The idea of Shroud was inspired by Amaranta, a character from Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude who was ordered by Death to sew her own shroud. Amaranta is visited by an elderly woman dressed in blue one day: "Death did not tell her when she was going to die … but she [Amaranta] was told that she would die without pain, fear, or bitterness at dusk on the day that she finished it." In order to put o the inevitable, she attempts to make her shroud as intricate as possible, even spinning her own thread in order to "waste as much time as possible." The image of weaving, or sewing, suggests an abundance of musical material and I imagine each instrument in the string trio as a different thread, creating an intricate, beautiful, but solemn, musical fabric.

Commissioned by Andronica Trio.

instrumentation

Violin, Viola, Cello

duration

ca. 8 minutes

performances