Turnage, Mark-Anthony: Contusion

after a poem by Sylvia Plath

Contusion is a concise, poignantly balanced one movement cry of pain. Its structure echoes classical sonata form, with its tight, numb and often repeated opening figure flowering into a much more anguished central section before the terse figure returns transformed yet unassuaged in a bleakly whispered ending in which the cello briefly takes wing.