Serenade for a Melancholic Sea

‘The work was written at the suggestion of Gidon Kremer, to whom it is also dedicated. It was commissioned by Ensemble Kanazawa and written in memory of Toru Takemitsu, the sound material of the serenade contains both Toru's and Gidon's monogram. Takemitsu's ‘sea motif’ E flat (S) - E - A is also present. Thus Gidon and Toru meet again symbolically in the spaceless and timeless sea of music. Perhaps the greatest mystery of musical interpretation arises when composer, musician and listener come together in a moment in which future and past meet and become the present at this interface.
In this piece, the orchestra and soloists play very different roles. The orchestral writing is complex despite its delicacy. When conceiving the work, I imagined a painting which, from a distance, gives the impression of a monochrome canvas - on closer inspection, however, one discovers differentiated, fine brushstrokes: a polyphonic painting. The string orchestra is divided into 23 independent voices, each of which contributes a different perspective to the constantly changing play of colours. Against this calm and at the same time multi-layered background, the protagonists violin, cello and piano appear as independent figures in a wide, open space.’ (Lera Auerbach)