The Violin: Complete works

Rest These Hands is a movement from The Violin - a suite of seven pieces for multi-tracked violins. The inspiration for the original suite came about through my dear friends and wonderful violinists, Neil Dufallo and Amy Kauffman based in New York City, and another dear friend and violin maker, Bruno Guastalla, based in Oxford, England. Shortly after my mother passed away in 2008, I found a violin in Oxfam, a charity shop in Oxford. It was in a dusty old case leaning up against a pile of vinyl records in the basement. Priced at £5.99 (approx. $9), the European baroque-style violin dating from the late 1800s, with a hand-carved lion's head scroll, was a bargain. It needed some work, so I took it to Bruno’s shop and he restored the violin in exchange for composition lessons. Back in Brooklyn, with a beautifully restored fiddle in stow, I made another barter with Neil and Amy - a violin duet in exchange for violin lessons. I subsequently composed Blue Hour, a violin duet with a pre-recorded track, which they premiered at John Zorn’s New York City performance space, The Stone, in 2009, and I began my violin lessons. The following Summer, we recorded the suite at our friend, Jody Elff’s home studio on his apple orchard in Upstate New York.

One of my favourite pieces of music for solo violin is the Presto from Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001. On the anniversary of my mother’s death, I composed six more pieces to make a suite alongside Blue Hour, which became the opening movement for The Violin - composing one piece an evening, finishing with Lavender Rain on the day of her anniversary. The Bach is quoted in Rest These Hands and Tea Leaves and these same two movements, along with The Violin, take their titles from three poems my mother wrote in the last year of her life.

I rest these hands
World weary
Misunderstood

I rest these hands
Toiled weary
Long before they shoul

These hands
Palmed to palmed
With wonder

Surrendered

—Colleen Clyne

Shortly after completing the music, I came across the work of New York-based artist Josh Dorman, through a program on PBS, which showed his extraordinary work with a Chicago-based organization that combines art and music in their work with people with Alzheimer’s. Through his art, he captured individual life stories through a collage of images that were recalled in their conversations. His art was deeply moving, and I felt an immediate connection. We met shortly thereafter at a café in New York City, following which, I sent him the recordings for The Violin. Over subsequent years, Josh created seven stop-motion animations to accompany each of the seven movements.

A DVD, which combines the music recorded by Amy and Neil with Josh’s animations, was released on the VIA Label in September 2014.

“Rest These Hands carried the listener on a kind of narrative journey over mysterious, haunting fields of sound and harmony expressive of the influence Clyne’s mother’s words have had over her creative impulse.” —I Care If You Listen