For one violin and two players

For one violin and two players is the second installment in the For one violin series, a five-piece work written for one violin and an increasing number of performers—ranging from one to four players—culminating in a final orchestral installment (yes, the whole orchestra plays on a single violin). For one violin embraces the violin’s affordances and pushes them to excess, making the pieces’ organizing logic perceptible to the audience.

Two players is also a meager—arguably inappropriate—wedding gift for my friend, Antony, and his partner, Steve. I owe Antony much gratitude since, beyond covering my tickets to symphony and chamber concerts, the core limitation of the For one violin series—its single violin—is directly tied to him as a violinist. Violinist everywhere will be thrilled—or, more likely, appalled—to discover the For one violin series: we thank and love you, Antony.

Two is the conceptual glue of two players. The piece is built around two of Antony’s interests: the violin and Olivier Messiaen. Antony is a violinist with a particular enthusiasm for Messiaen’s mélodies and Turangalîla-symphonie. Two players restricts itself to two-note pitch combinations, systematically exhausting every dyad derived from Messiaen’s third mode and organizing them into four sections (one per limited transposition), all within a nonretrogradable formal design. I also use a two-word tempo marking scheme (adjective and verb) which adds textual and interpretative dimensions to two players.

Two players challenges a fundamental musical norm: that a violin is played by a single performer. That is, simply, not always the case. What a fine thought to offer as a wedding gift.