I CRY - Summer 2020

Composed: 2020
Duration:  3 minutes
Instrumentation: violin and piano

Performed by Juventas New Music Ensemble. Ryan Shannon - violin, Julia Scott Carey - piano

PROGRAM NOTES

Composed in the midst of the lengthy Pandemic, I Cry – Summer 2020 is a reaction firstly to the gnawing burden of isolation, self-imposed loss of mobility, and a restricted way of life that shows no signs of abating.  Along with this, my country is in trouble.  I cry for the people who are hurting, who are dead, who are killed for no reason, who are diminished because they are different in some way, and for those who are narrow and afraid to broaden their vision of life.

REVIEWS

“‘I Cry – Summer 2020’, for piano and violin, opens with contemplative passage that soon turns more emotional. The composer adroitly weaves the piano’s right-hand triplets and pedal tones around the violin’s wide-ranging melody, performed here by Sato with remarkable expressivity. Wang is an adroit partner at the piano. This piece, short but impactful, is a deeply felt response to the Covid pandemic, likely to resonate with many listeners.”
- Melinda Bargreen, EarRelevant, Reactions CD, 2022

“The Covid 19 pandemic, which paralysed a whole world – and we haven’t fully recovered yet – has also resulted in artistic and musical fingerprints. The isolation, the loneliness, paralysed lots of normally active people but others transformed the paralysation to creative zest. Margaret Brouwer composed the little ‘I Cry – Summer 2020’, as a lamentation over the loneliness that overcame her. What she found in her loneliness was beauty. The violin – Mari Sato’s playing is lovely, as it is in the rest of her work on this disc – sings melodiously, to begin with over a Moonlight Sonata accompaniment. A lament it certainly is, but it needn’t be sorrowful.”
- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International, Reactions CD, 2022

“The stresses of the pandemic and the scourge of inequality are depicted in fervent terms in ‘I Cry – Summer 2020’, which Sato and Wang give an intensely compelling performance.”
- Gramophone, Reactions CD, 2022

“‘I Cry’ features Sato in a desperate lament, examining the feelings of isolation and the restrictions placed on people throughout the COVID-19 lockdowns. Insistent solo lines that flow between the lowest and highest points on the violin allow for an expansive quality reminiscent of the weeping nature the title depicts.”
- Nicolette Cheauré, ClevelandClassical, Reactions CD, 2022

“a nicely evocative summer meditation for violin and piano”
- Gapplegate Classical Modern Music, Reactions CD, 2022

“The subject matter remains heavy for ‘I Cry - Summer 2020,’ a work composed in reaction to pandemic-induced isolation, racial injustice, political lies, gun deaths, and children separated from parents. Though it's arranged as a four-minute instrumental duet for violin and piano, Sato and Wang forcefully articulate the anguish Brouwer was feeling at the time the work was created.”
- Textura, Reactions CD, 2022