»To Britta Malpricht und Tamas Varga for their wedding«
For cello and piano
Duration: 7'50''
Premiere: May 5, 2010, Arnold Schönberg Center (Vienna)
Published by Edition Contemp Art (Verlagsgruppe Hermann),
Obtainable via www.schott-music.com
Product number: VGH 1593-70 (Score and part)
Offering at Daybreak (Morgengabe) originated during a secluded period devoted to composition spent together with the Germanist Ruth Gilg in a villa in Rifferswil, Canton Zürich. It is the ninth piece in the cycle of Homages Op. 14, which Staar had begun in 1985 with the two pieces Ständchen and Sitzchen, written for Ernst Krenek’s 85th birthday.
It was dedicated to Britta Malpricht and to Tamás Varga, solo cellist of the Vienna Philharmonic, on the occasion of their wedding.
This piece sketches the development of two individuals into a mutually complementary wedded couple, through phases of seeking, personification, courtship, dialogue, and approach, up to fusion and union. Each of the major divisions of the piece strives towards the b-a-c-h motive worked through in the final section. These divisions symbolize through their interconnections the mystical union of two people united by far more than just marriage vows. The piece plays with various possibilities of contrapuntal interweaving, partly of motivic and partly of rhythmic nature, which are worked through horizontally as well as vertically.