Availability

Score 0571505686 on sale

Programme Notes

The word Lullaby is used in the sense of an incantation to sleep; Sonya is my daughter, who was a four-month-old insomniac in October 1977 when the first sketch of this piece was written. Formally the music is, I hope, self-explanatory –- but perhaps it is worth mentioning that an initials stimulus toward the piano writing was the harmonic exploitation of overtones produced from the lowest register of the instrument by composers as diverse as Brahms, Scriabin, Copland and Carter. Sonya’s Lullaby is the central panel fo my chamber music Triptych (the other two being Autumnal for violin and piano and Cantata for oboe and string trio) and was written for the composer-pianist Michael Finnissy, who gave the first performance of the final version in Amsterdam, January 1979.

© Oliver Knussen

Sonya's Lullaby

Auditorium, Maison de la Radio (Paris, France)

London Sinfonietta/Christian Karlsen/Florent Boffard

Find Out More

Sonya's Lullaby

Tanglewood Music Center (Lenox, MA, USA)

Sonya's Lullaby

Libbey Bowl (Ojai, CA, USA)

Ludwig

Find Out More

Sonya's Lullaby

Lippes Concert Hall, University at Buffalo (New York City, NY, USA)

Ensemble Signal/Brad Lubman

Sonya's Lullaby

Yellow Barn (Putney, VT, USA)

Eunae Koh/EunAe Lee/Alice Chenyang Xu/Mark Hill/Harriet Langley/Tegen Davidge/Annie Jacobs-Perkins

Find Out More