- John Harbison
Presences (2015)
- Associated Music Publishers Inc (World)
Programme Note
Composer note:
Presences, for solo cello, string quartet, and bass viol, was commissioned by Charles Felsenthal to honor his friend, the young cellist, David Anderson (1978-1998). With the help of many materials furnished to me by the commissioner — news articles, photographs, concert programs, poems, and personal memories — I conceived of an informal, un-stylized piece, not a threnody or tombeau, but something which might permit David Anderson's cello-voice — which unfortunately I never heard or knew — to be known and heard again through the porous curtain which shields us from the other side.
— John Harbison
Presences, for solo cello, string quartet, and bass viol, was commissioned by Charles Felsenthal to honor his friend, the young cellist, David Anderson (1978-1998). With the help of many materials furnished to me by the commissioner — news articles, photographs, concert programs, poems, and personal memories — I conceived of an informal, un-stylized piece, not a threnody or tombeau, but something which might permit David Anderson's cello-voice — which unfortunately I never heard or knew — to be known and heard again through the porous curtain which shields us from the other side.
— John Harbison