For solo Cello Timpani and Strings.Popule Meus was commissioned through the Magnum Opus project: Kathryn Gould founding patron and commissioner and Meet the Composer project manager.It was first performed on 6thFebruary 2010 by Yuri Hooker (cello) and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alexander Micklethwate. Composer's Notes 'Popule Meus is a meditation on the Judaic and Christian text ?O my People whathave I done to you?? but itis also a Universalist contemplation of the wholesale rejection of God by modern man. However much manrejects God he cannot escape Him and indeed he is condemned to the supernatural by his deiformnature. InHindu terms he is the Absolute Ayam Atma Brahma (The Self is the Absolute).In this work the solo cello is the All-Compassionate One while the timpani represent man in his vain andpointless rejection. Although the solocello and strings and the timpani share the same material (four ideas aregradually revealed and they revolve four times during the piece) the timpani music is violent and becomesincreasingly frenzied and contracted while thecello and strings remain still and serene.So even in winning the Darkness loses and even in losing the Light wins. Passion Resurrection andRedemption; or in Hindu terms Atma (The Absolute) alone is real Maya (The Relative) ismerely illusion.'

for solo cello. Par LARCHER THOMAS. I do not compose my pieces for a certain voice range or orchestration, but for musicians, for people. It is almost impossible for me to produce a piece without having a particular person in mind or to hear him/her inwardly. No matter how standardized the interpretation of classical music is, and no matter how many coordinates have been fixed and defined, I do not want to have them seen (and therewith the notation) as determining and limiting signs, but rather as guideposts towards the creation of vital, organic music. In differentiated music, two participants are necessary in order for a piece to evolve-- the composer and the musician. Just as there is no one way for a composer to express himself or to notate music, etc., neither is there one way for a musician to read the notation, to interpret, or to live. We find ourselves, for this reason, in a network of meanings, gestures, and signs which have to be fathomed and expanded together. The tone, the breath, the gestures, the dedication, and the potentialities of a musician were also ultimately decisive for the form of this piece. It is music which pushes the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument to its very limits. It is music in which the musician has to transport the contexts and expression over and above the notation. It was not necessary for me to find a new form for this piece; it is a work which can and should be performed in a ‘normal’ concert situation. I deliberately wanted to integrate the perhaps new and unusual content into a familiar form (thus the title ‘Sonata’) And I also wanted to embed the aforementioned extreme situations (in which the technical extremes are synonyms for tension, isolation, loss or tenderness) in an organic process in order for the listener to be able to empathize with and comprehend what is expressed in the piece. I would like to thank Natalie Clein, to whom the Sonata is dedicated, for inspiring this piece and for the path that led to the realization of the music. Thomas Larcher/ Répertoire / Violoncelle