Reflection: Op. 31a, Score & Part

This enchanting 8-minute piece for violin and piano---Oliver Knussen's penultimate work---is made up of various kinds of musical reflection: melody reflected in its inversion; a six-note mode reflected in its complement; and the relationships between the three main parts of the piece, which are in a way varied reflections of each other. There are some reflections in water, too; the work's opus number (31a) demonstrates a relationship to Knussen's unfinished Cleveland Pictures: The main melody began as a response to Gauguin ... Read More

This enchanting 8-minute piece for violin and piano---Oliver Knussen's penultimate work---is made up of various kinds of musical reflection: melody reflected in its inversion; a six-note mode reflected in its complement; and the relationships between the three main parts of the piece, which are in a way varied reflections of each other. There are some reflections in water, too; the work's opus number (31a) demonstrates a relationship to Knussen's unfinished Cleveland Pictures: The main melody began as a response to Gauguin's painting of a Breton woman swimming," Knussen wrote, "and there is also, perhaps, an echo of the lonely underwater world of an ondine, eventually breaking the surface at the end of the piece." Read Less