Completed in March, 2021.

Commissioned by Joanna Kurkowicz, for her “Bach and Beyond” project.

Program note

Long after I finish listening to any piece of music by Bach, I find myself haunted by his gestures. Even if the specific melodies and harmonies have left my memory, the rhythmic patterns and broad shapes of his music stay behind. So when Joanna Kurkowicz asked me to write a companion piece to Bach’s Violin Sonata no. 2, BWV 1003, I began to fixate on the particular gestures in that piece, from its opening A minor triad to its staggering fugue and elegant, pulsing Andante.

This piece, Fixation I, is at once a conjuring and an exorcism of these musical gestures. The violinist begins with violent outbursts, spilling Bach’s ideas out into the air one after another. Then, she finds unexpected paths between them, allows them to grow and change, and finally moves beyond them.