Dual-ing ("Cecil in Africa") for solo viola (2024)

Dual-ing ("Cecil in Africa") for solo viola (2024)
Composer: Kathleen Tagg

Commissioned by the 4th Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition held at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music, Gateshead, UK from 19-25 January, 2025
Duration: ca 4 min

COMPOSER’S NOTE for “DUAL-ING”:

Cecil Aronowitz was born on 4 March 1916 in King William's Town, South Africa, now called Qonce, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Before moving to England to study at the Royal College of Music in London, he studied the violin in Durban. I have spent a lot of time thinking about him: somebody known as a great British musician, which he was, but also as somebody born on a another continent, at the southern tip of Africa, with all of its internal conflicts that he would have lived through, as well as its place so integrated within the British Empire’s structures.

As somebody who was born in the same part of South Africa as Aronowitz, and who also chose to study abroad, I know this feeling of having two “homes”, two (dual) identities. In this piece, I wanted to have two contrasting sections: the first section with a slightly lopsided arioso inspired by traditional old English Airs, where I thought of the kind of treatments that a composer like Benjamin Britten, a long-time colleague of Aronowitz, may do (though in my own style). I then wanted to transition into a section that had a kind of wild abandon, rhythmic vitality and sense of fun and mischief- hallmarks of my favourite types of South African music-making.

I first heard about Cecil Aronowitz as a young teenager, from my piano professor, Lamar Crowson, a Texan who ended up first in London for many years as one of the leading chamber musicians of his time, and later moving to Cape Town. Crowson had long collaborated with Aronowitz as a member of the renowned Melos Ensemble. I was therefore particularly thrilled to be asked to write this work for the 4th Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition, held at the international Glasshouse Centre for Music, Gateshead, from 19-25 January 2025.

- Kathleen Tagg