This piece was written for an exhibition in New South Wales, Australia, devoted to artists suffering schizophrenia, called For Matthew and Others. It was commissioned by Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in Penrith and had its premiere in September 2006. At the base of the piece (which incidentally
starts similarly to the way my piece Mythic for orchestra 2004 ends) is a 4-chord progression, very simple and minimal.
A person with schizophrenia hears voices, which can be very disturbing; there is a yearning for silence. I wrote this work so that my son Alex who suffers from the illness can listen to calmness, meditation. It’s called Blue Silence because blue is sometimes associated with healing. As well as the original version for
cello and piano, there are versions for:
a) piano solo
b) 4 clarinets
c) flute and piano
d) clarinet and piano
e) clarinet, cello and piano (made for Rachel Scott in February 2009)
f) harp and cello (a slightly shorter version, for Alice Giles and David Pereira
in January 2009)
g) string quartet
h) violin, violoncello and piano
In January 2009 I was compelled to do one more arrangement of it for Rachel Scott, for clarinet, cello and piano. In this arrangement there is a lot of interplay and echo between the single line instruments, i.e. they are not playing a lot together, rather one after the other.
Elena Kats-Chernin
