Clear Music

Written for cello, harp and celeste.

Clear Music (after John Taverner) was written at the request of the cellist Wendy Law during the summer of 2002. Clear Music is an extended exploration of a single measure in JohnTaverner’s (1490 1545) motet Mater Christi Sanctissima. What I attempted to do in Clear Music was to suspend this measure for as long as I could imagine in a single texture: the bright clarity of the celeste and harp. As in theTaverner, I have structured Clear Music into a series of peaks featuring the highest registers of the treble voice—here, the cello. I remember very vividly performing this piece and being struck by how distant the treble wasfromthe other voices - sometimes, there are spaces of over an octave between the treble and the alto - and I attempted to recreate the somewhat terrifying and exposed contours of these lines. The end result is, I hope, a prolongedand transparent recollection of the Taverner which exposes not only my appreciation for the music itself but also my response to performing it.
Nico Muhly.