The Cello Museum – Postcards from Erica-October 2024

Trying to find unaccompanied cello music by Asian composers? Look no further.

Postcards from Erica October 2024

This month, I’m sending you the eighth installment in my new series of postcards on unaccompanied works for cello by Asian composers. You can find my previous postcards in the series here.

I created my online “just-the-facts-ma’am”-style digital postcards to introduce listeners to new-to-you cello music and to help cellists, orchestra directors, cello teachers, and students seeking new repertoire, contest pieces, and supplemental literature.

These monthly postcards give you the information you need to help you choose a piece that’s right for you. I also include links to make it easy for you to locate and purchase the sheet music you want. I hope you enjoy exploring these pieces as much as I did selecting them.

You can also read a quick round-up of my postcards featuring works by Black composers, my series featuring women composers, the series I just completed on Hispanic and Latino/Latina composers, or revisit all of my postcards.

Postcard #1: Docking Overnight by Maple Bridge by Ssu-Yu Huang

Title: Docking Overnight by Maple Bridge
Composer: Ssu-Yu Huang
Year Composed: 2014
Instrumentation: unaccompanied cello
Movements: 1
Duration: 5′
Number of Pages: 3
Number of Measures: 53
Tempo: quarter = 52, 68, 72, 106
Difficulty Level: low advanced
Highest Position Reached: thumb
Technique Employed: bass, tenor, and treble clefs; 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, and 6/4 time signatures; pizzicato, grace notes, glissandos, and trills; harmonics and false harmonics; double stops, tremolo, ponticello, col legno, left-hand strikes, triplets, and sextuplets
Publisher: composer
Where to Purchase: www.musicated.com/syh/
Cost of Score*: $10 digital download

Recording

Program Notes

“This piece was world-premiered by cellist Chien Hui Yang at her graduation recital (Pei-Chin Shi, adviser) at the Department of Chinese Music, Tainan National University of the Arts on April 27, 2014.

This piece is the cello version of “Docking Overnight by Maple Bridge,” which came from Ssu-Yu Huang’s “Grand Music of Tang” No. 5 for classical guitar. The music was inspired by a poem of Zhang Ji (c. 753 AD) of Tang Dynasty under the same title:

At moonset the crows caw through the frosty sky.
Unable to sleep, I watch maple trees by fishing light.
Outside Gusu, Cold Mountain Temple stands upright.
The sound of its bells reaches my boat at midnight.

On Feb. 11, 2017 this piece was performed by cellist Megan Koch in a Verdant Vibes concert at Music Mansion, Providence, Rhode Island.” – Ssu-Yu Huang’s website

Cellist’s Guide

This piece sits well in the left hand. Cellists just exiting the intermediate stage will be exposed to a little easy thumb position and comfortable double stops, as well as harmonics and ponticello playing.

There is ample opportunity in Docking Overnight to practice quickly changing back and forth between arco and pizzicato and col lego and pizzicato. This is a skill worth developing, as it will serve you well in orchestral and chamber music.

The most prevalent technical element presented in this work is rocking the bow across all four strings. The second page consists almost entirely of sixteenth-note triplets crossing two and three strings. These triplets occur in both descending and ascending patterns.

Though I would consider Docking Overnight by the Maple Bridge to be a low advanced level piece, I think a late advanced or professional player would enjoy putting this on a recital.

Postcard #2: Perhaps by Reena Esmail

Title: Perhaps
Composer: Reena Esmail
Year Composed: 2005, revised 2015
Instrumentation: unaccompanied cello
Movements: 1
Duration: 4:20 and 7:35 for extended version
Number of Pages: 2, 5 for extended version
Number of Measures: 40, 112 for the extended version
Tempo: Largo espressivo
Difficulty Level: advanced/professional
Highest Position Reached: thumb
Technique Employed: bass and treble clefs; 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, and 5/4 time signatures; double, triple, and quadruple stops; harmonics and false harmonics; grace notes and glissandos
Publisher: A Piece of Sky Music
Where to Purchase:
Cost of Score*: $19 digital download, $27 digital download for extended version. – print versions are also available

Recordings

This is the original version on the bass, and in a different key:

Here is a recording of the extended version on the cello:

Program Notes

“I wrote this piece as a collaboration with dancer/filmmaker and dear friend Heather McCalden. Below is an excerpt from McCalden’s notes about her film “Figures of Speech”:

The title of Reena’s music is derived from an essay by Jacques Derrida called, “The Loving in Friendship: Perhaps: – the Adverb, and the Noun”. The noun version of perhaps is one that has gone into this work, for I find it to be something quite wonderful, yet naturally, impossible to summarize. In extremely reduced form, the perhaps is an “opening” which allows room for uncertainty, and room for something Derrida calls the “impossible possibles” — which are the only real possibles for, “a possible surely and certainly possible…would be a poor possible.” Perhaps as both a noun and an adverb is a suspension that creates space to allow anything to happen; in this sense, the concept for me is something that allows room for hope — something very rare these days.” – Reena Esmail

Performance Notes

There are two versions of Perhaps – a 5-minute version from 2005 and a 10-minute version from 2015, ten years later. Heather made two different films, one for each of these versions. The cello piece and the film are not dependent on one another, and more often than not, Perhaps is performed alone. However, if you would like to perform this piece with film, please contact Heather directly through her website.

Cellist’s Guide

It is fascinating to look at both the original and extended versions of this work. Esmail not only added sections to the piece, but took the opportunity to lightly rework much of the original score. Beats have been added to make the space between phrases more spacious and double stops have been made easier. Rhythm has been altered to facilitate more organic movement and is some cases, notes have been added.

Initially, I thought it would be nice to learn both versions, thinking that the extended version would just have new sections added on to the original. Upon examining the two scores, I realized that the scores were both similar and different enough to make going between them confusing. Though I like the original, I think the extended version is stronger. If I had to choose which score to purchase, it would be the latter.

While much of this piece would be manageable for a late intermediate player, high thumb position and some tricky double stops make this the domain of the advanced or professional player. If you love this piece, don’t let that deter you-play what you can and save the rest for when you have developed more technique!