Ran, Shulamit: Excursions

Excursions is a one-movement work exploring two principal “characters”: a rhapsodic, descending passage introduced by the cello, and a static, chorale-like phrase for the violin and cello. Two individual developments of these materials are separated by a slow, more lyrical middle section. The composer has written: This is analogous to situations in life: we stand by a crossroad, choosing one option and forfeiting the other. But in art, the realm of the imagination, we can perhaps afford to pursue more than one route to its ultimate destination… or can we? It is symbolic that in this work both roads eventually lead to the same place.