This piece began with a four-voice cadential passage based on a common phrase extending a harmonic sequence from the Baroque and Classical eras. I had Jean-Philippe Rameau in mind at the time, but this harmonic turn of I6, II6/5, V7, iv is found in works by any number of Baroque, Classical, and bel canto composers. With this simple four-part realization in hand, I quickly began covering my tracks, adding four additional voices that extended and obscured the original tonal harmony.

My new eight-voice chords became the basis for a cycle of bell-like tones in the piano, which undergird the opening and closing thirds of the work. Upon this shimmering background, the violist spins out a darkly lyrical passage that becomes increasingly entangled in the pianist’s harmonic churnings.

As we approach the middle section of the work, the piano gradually sneaks in an unabashedly sentimental tune that reveals the underlying harmonies on which the work is based. Now free from the obfuscating cloak of chromaticism, this simple diatonic music forms the heart of the work. The violist joins in and finally brings us to the perfect authentic cadence we’ve been denied during the first six minutes of the work.

Resolution is fleeting, as a series of descending scales pull us gradually down through related harmonic areas, finally dropping us into a recapitulation in B-flat minor. Now harmonically stable, the sinking feeling continues nevertheless, as the bass clarinet line becomes trapped in obsessive repetitions of the same descending scale. Slower and slower, these scales fall gradually to the lowest note of this most ominous of wind instruments, and a return to our original lyrical music brings the work to a somber conclusion.

This version for viola and piano was arranged for my good friend, violist Keith Hamm.