WINGATE: METAPHYSICAL MONOLOGUE NO. 2
for Viola Solo

Date:
2020

Duration:
4'15"

Notes:
The Metaphysical Monologue for solo viola creates its philosophical conceit through the spontaneous alternation between arco and pizzicato (bowed and plucked notes), while exploring a full twelve-tone row embedded in asymmetrical melodic fragments. Sometimes the effect is, as it were, that of a viola playing a duet with itself. This monologue shares its tone row with the composer’s String Quartet No. 1 (composed just afterward), but by contrast uses the row to achieve melodic rather than chordal outcomes. The almost unbelievably rich lower register of the viola makes its star appearance throughout the piece, but sometimes yields to shockingly high, violinesque notes, as in the piece’s final moments.