The Space Between Lovers (2021)

Instrumentation: Viola Solo (or Cello solo)

Difficulty: Medium Advanced

Duration: approx. 10’

Performance Materials (PDF format): $20.00

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“I believe if there’s any kind of God it wouldn’t be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it’s almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.”

Before Sunrise (1995),

dir. Richard Linklater

Gabby Cioca, the violist who commissioned The Space Between Lovers, and I first bonded over our shared love of film. Because of this central element of our friendship, her only guidelines when discussing a commission were to base the work off of a film. I spent quite a while thinking about my favorite films and which ones had themes that I felt were worth exploring in music. Eventually I landed on Before Sunrise, Richard Linklater’s beautiful romance set over the course of one night in Vienna as Ethan Hawke’s and Julie Delpy’s characters meet on a train and subsequently fall in love.

There is a timeless, airless quality to Before Sunrise. Towards the end of the film, one of the characters remarks that the night they have just spent together feels like it existed outside of time, in some other dimension and that they feel they will turn back into pumpkins when the sun rises. This feeling of moments feeling stretched out to entire lifetimes and yet hours passing in the blink of an eye is a phenomenon I believe we only experience when we are with someone we truly love.

With this piece, I wanted to write something romantic, at times almost saccharine, that sounds like it could be a love theme from a romance film. I use very little melodic material that is stated in expanding and contracting senses of time - one chord may be drawn out over 30 seconds, while at other times the entire progression is sounded in a matter of sixteenth notes. The result is, I think, one of the most honest and tender works I have written and it is a personal favorite of mine.

Audio below: Gabby Cioca, Viola