Concerto for Viola

The Presto movement here consumes only about 25% of the total elapsed time of the composition, but required about 50% of the total time spent composing and occupies about 50% of the total number of measures in the piece: "I'm just sayin'."

The quasi-cadenza in the first movement (so-called because, after all, a true cadenza should be performed ad libitum by the soloist - not through-composed by the orchestrator) simultaneously recapitulates all the tempo changes of the first movement and all the harmonic changes of the entire composition. It serves thus as a sort of a microcosm of both the initial movement and of the piece as a whole. The artfulness of this contrivance should not, however, deter the soloist from scrapping it altogether and substituting his or her own true cadenza in its place, should any extraordinarily creative improvement on this scheme occur to them.

This is the first orchestral composition I felt really good about the whole time I was writing it; one only hopes that doesn't mean it will eventually become the one I most dislike.