Celebratio - for Viola

Justin Connolly wrote Celebratio, per viola sola in 2005 as a 60th birthday gift for the eminent translator David McDuff. The work is concerned with the interplay of contrasting material both within and across the three movements. The music has a lyrical quality, with melody - even if this is not always melody in the 'cantabile' sense - prominent, in preference to percussive or fragmented textures. Dynamics are generally graduated rather than pointillistic, underpinning the ebb and flow of phrase structures. Where shorter gestures predominate, these generally coalesce into extended passages of expressive melodic writing, which lead towards the climactic points in the work.