Soliloquy is defined as “an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers”—in this current collection of solo works for cello we see very distinct thoughts posed in new compositions from a variety of living composers with a central musical reference point of the music of J.S. Bach. One could be forgiven for not seeing the immediate connection between the music of J.S. Bach and that of living composers. To not see such a connection is to see music from a perspective of perhaps too-siloed a set of historical periods and styles. In fact, music and musical influence is far less definite and determinedly boundary defying in its scope and reach. Increasingly, today’s composers draw on musical influence across centuries and, more recently, across genres in a non-hierarchical manner that flattens distinctions between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art as much as it increasingly blurs distinctions between ‘then’ and ‘now.’ This flattened field of influence is the very one from which today’s composers draw interest, inspiration and musical definition. Like a central magnetic force though, Bach’s music for solo cello is never without influence when any composer attempts to write a solo work for cello. Whether in the foreground of a composer’s thinking or lurking somewhere in the background of some previous period of study of these masterpieces for cello, any composer writing a solo cello work has these iconic works as some component of the rich amalgam of influence enriching the creation of new work. In J. Mark Searce’s Gae’s Lament the composer mourns the “desecration of our planet” in a yearning and intensely sad soliloquy on the Exxon Valdez disaster: an event still ravaging the environment some twenty-five years after the spill. In this work the strands and vestiges of Bach’s slow movements for solo cello can be traced through the long and emotionally drawn melodic contours of the work. However, definitive contemporary inflection is clear in such techniques as expressive and wide portamenti, sul ponticello (near the bridge) playing, use of artificial harmonics as well as in the melodic structure of the work, which takes on a very different rhetorical perspective than in the music of Bach. Kaija Saariaho has crafted a beautiful and mesmerizing world of sound in her work Spins and Spells. The composer writes: “The title evokes the two gestures which are at the origin of the work: on the one hand the pattern which I call "spinning tops" turning around on the one spot or undergoing changes, and on the other, timeless moments, centered on the sound colour and texture.” The very nature of pattern and stillness, motion and reflection are thus central to Saariaho’s approach to this work much as Bach drew on the pulse and cadence of dance forms not, surely, to create music for dance, but rather as patterned motion that, while drawing on the central elements of a dance style, allowed for the musical and intellectual transformation of such patterned motion into something that is about much more than dance: transcending simple genre and style to make more profound statements. So too, in Saariaho’s music that such simple elements as ‘spinning’ and ‘stillness’ create a world that is about much more—emotionally, psychologically and intellectually—than those simple things. In the Bach Suite in G Major, we see a composer at the height of his powers writing music that is intimate, bare and essential, but underpinned with a compositional technique that is fluid, graceful and timeless. Most of all though, Bach beautifully balances melodic and harmonic structures as he unfolds music that is song-like in its simple beauty but deeply enriched by a harmonic world that is powerful, profound, transformative and structurally definitive. Bach uses this tremendously inspiring balance of natural melodic beauty and harmonic power with a multi-voice, contrapuntal approach to the instrument that is as beautiful to hear as it is formidably difficult to play. In the hands of a master cellist this, and all of Bach’s other works for solo cello, unfold the voices not of a simple single line, but rather a rich and sinewy counterpoint of lines. This technique constantly evokes textures of two, three or more voices as Bach traverses new harmonic territory whose multiply-voiced textures all close in on his formal and expressive goals with a commanding authority. In all of the six movements that comprise the Suite in G Major Bach masterfully references the main dance movements that served as the vehicles for the suite in his day. The Prelude, like many of the keyboard preludes of Bach, uses a key motivic device to drive the harmonic unfolding of the work as it moves ever more distantly away from its tonic and is drawn back to that tonic through the use of pedal points which create both urgency, focus and goal direction towards a close. The Allemande, with its irregularly drawn phrases that sometimes elide into each other is a superbly simple but also tremendously artful binary form. In this movement Bach moves through an expected range of related keys but does so with a very sophisticated regard to the unexpected in the sudden shifts to and from related key centers through the uses of unevenly constructed melodic statements. These statements propel the music into almost feeling like a structured improvisation. Here, the performer’s challenge is to convey the solidity and predictability of the structure while also projecting the free, unharnessed flowering of the melodic world of the movement. The joyous Courante, likewise carries with it an unbridled sense of development after very stable initial statements of the main idea at the beginning of each half of the work. So, clear dance like form gives way, again, to abrupt and abruptly juxtaposed dance fragments that Bach uses freely to convey a sense of bubbling joy but which always lead back to the stability of the main Courante idea. The central heart of the Suite is the achingly beautiful Sarabande. Bare, spare and withheld, the music seems almost to strain against itself in seeking to express its gentle world. Here double and triple stops are not used, as in other movements, to convey additional contrapuntal lines but rather as a simple harmonic accompaniment to a melody that spins a rare and refined emotional journey from start to inevitable last cadence. The two minuets serve as a set of contrasting dances: the first a light and joyous one in G major with a second minuet of more slightly troubled expression in g minor—the first appearance of the tonic minor in the whole suite and masterfully reserved for this moment. The Gigue is perhaps the movement that adheres to traditional dance in both form and intent. While it could be argued that previous movements carry a weight and substance that outstrips the expressive expectation of a dance suite, in many ways the Gigue fulfills them superbly and acts to move the suite from one of internal meditation to external and worldly joy. In his Prelude and Toccata composer Jeremy Beck comes perhaps closest in spirit and letter to the Bach work. Using baroque forms and a clearly tonal language, Beck adroitly avoids simple model composition to create a work that, while referencing the past, does so in way that appropriates it, transforms it and brings it into modern America. Beck’s harmonic language is the first key difference with the Bach. Though based on clear sets of harmonic progressions, like the Bach, Beck’s harmonic language references more a world of modern America and particularly the harmonic language of classic American composers such as Barber. Added to this his structural approach is also freer and more fragmented than in the music of Bach, referencing a world of rhetoric that has undergone many changes throughout the twentieth century. Formally though, the music is clear and classical in form, even as the surface is block-like, unpredictable and juxtaposed. As the composer writes of the form: “The Prelude opens with an arpeggiated figure in thirds. This arpeggiation becomes one of the two principal motives of this movement. A melodic neighbor gesture in measure five introduces the second of these principal motives. As the movement unfolds, these two ideas freely develop and combine. Beginning in a modality with an enharmonic-flat emphasis, the music later enters a more sharp-focused region before moving back to flats prior to closing on D major. The Toccata is the longer of the two movements and reveals itself to be in a type of traditional rondo form. Centered in an e-minor modality, the movement opens with an aggressive, syncopated figure. This initial figure acts as a kind of “engine” throughout the movement, leading into a succession of diverse musical ideas connected primarily through rhythm. The half-step introduced in the first measure also becomes a principal motivic idea.” In Rene Orth’s work Rage the composer references a driven multi-layered textural world the roots of which again might be traced back to Bach. However, in her world the savage juxtapositions and brutal multiple stops clearly signal a contemporary approach to cello sounds. The added vocalisations of the cellist are also clear references to the influence of theatre and performance art into the art music of the twentieth century. The composer uses these resources with tremendous effectiveness, drama and impact in a short composition which is like a kind of Toccata—never stopping and driven, yet drawing on a timbral world that is rough, tough and wrought. Rage is the work of which the composer writes: “Mr. York specifically asked for “four minutes of bombastic cello playing.” And so that is what I wrote. I felt that a quote from Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” was most appropriate for the inspiration of this piece: “…Rage, rage against the dying of the light” This disc’s title comes from that of the next work, Soliloquies by Frederick Speck, who says of the work: “Soliloquies was written at the request of cellist, Paul York, whose span of expressive detail in performance ranges from the most intimate gestures to the very extremes of robust, earthy, virtuosity. Unaccompanied solo works have the unique potential to create the illusion of unspoken, private reflections, that can reveal a powerful, at times unexpected honesty, much like that which occurs among their relatives from the world of the theater. Of course, illusion aside, it is the determination of the performer, just as Lady Macbeth suggested, to lure the listener so “that I may pour my spirits in thine ear…” The work unfolds from an intimate, introspective utterance of a gently rising major third, which provides the contemplative core for lyrical embroidery and expressive development. The theme grows in textural density and rhythmic activity through the first half of the work, finally giving way to music of an athletic, dance-like quality. Past this dramatically climactic section, the music returns to again explore the intimacy of earlier melodic fragments of vocalize character, in their own way, both more fragile and more potent than at first.” In this fine work for solo cello we might again feel the spirit of Bach in the inward, reflective intimacy of the work. However, here too we hear a broader sweep of emotional mood that is more characteristic of contemporary expression than we would ever find in Bach. Intensity of gesture, episodic structural unfolding all drawn together with a sad, inward line that propels the work forward all speaks to a contemporary language of structure and substance. As the work unfolds through these episodes it becomes ever more deeply involved in an intense and emotional language that is searching and rhapsodic. As a soliloquy of this century Speck has created something that also has deep roots in the past. It is a work that is refined and soulfully lyrical and in this affect we feel that lone voice speaking one’s thoughts aloud. In Knehans’ The Other the world of traditional cello playing is again engaged yet charged with a fully contemporary task in its expression. Fiercely focused, the three movements each rely on single techniques: movement one on pizzicato alone; movement two on long, slow, high notes and movement three on a moto perpetuo based on a repeated note. Here too we find a composer who is grappling with some of the more metaphysical perspectives of solo cello music first explored by Bach. As the composer writes: “The Other is about ways of being, or more precisely, about the condition of being. encased, the first movement of this three movement work, features only pizzicato playing from the cellist. The denial of one of the most central qualities of the cello–that of its rapturous bel canto legato when bowed–through a movement all in pizzicato suggested to me a hammered or choked quality, as though voice itself were denied. The rhythmic motives of the movement suggest a knocking or repeated kicking from within the ‘box’ of the cello as one seeks voice. This analogy is one that seemed to me very relevant to the human condition. Throughout life we all seek to be heard for our unique voice and this is what this movement represents in sound–the struggle of that quest. light, the second movement of the work is a long, slow, mesmeric setting of a simple tune or perhaps more precisely tune fragments. The melody never really ‘flowers’ as such, but is captured in a still, reticent, voice unable to quite reach a full statement of expression. This movement seeks to capture that halting, wistful spirituality that comes from a deep meditation on humanity and our human condition as we quest to be heard and seen, even if only by something larger than ourselves. This movement was written around the time of the death of Polish composer Henryk Górecki and is dedicated to his memory. dervish, the third movement is set as a frantic moto perpetuo in swirling lines cascading through the vast range of the cello. Without even one beats rest throughout, the movement represents not only a massive technical challenge for the soloist but also seeks to capture the ever quickening pulse and pace of obsessive physical meditation. Working through such waves of pulsating lines the movement tightens its rhythmic and metrical span from 3 compound beats in a measure to two and then finally a simple two beats, evoking, perhaps, the breathless quest of such a journey. The work ends, then, in a circling spiral of rhythmic ideas and obsessive repeated notes and themes climaxing in somewhat of a ‘breakthough’ in this three movement crypto-spiritual journey. The Other is the title of this work because it is emblematic of what we seem to all seek—the search for that other that is different, and better—the fulfillment of our ideals, the other of our dreams. The work was written for and is dedicated with gratitude and in friendship to cellist Paul York.” So this disc itself represents a varied journey through the Soliloquies of some very interesting and thoughtful composers in a chain of music originating with J.S. Bach and his foundational approach to the cello (gamba) and it’s repertoire. Such repertoire is ever growing and enhanced through the efforts of pioneering performer/composer partnerships, the fruits of which are documented on this disc.