Saunders, Rebecca: to an utterance

for Piano and Orchestra

"to an utterance" by Rebecca Saunders is a 28-minute work for solo piano and orchestra with the following instrumentation: 3(1/2,Picc/3,Picc).3.3(1/2,BCl/3,BCl,CbCl).3(1/2/Cbsn) – 4.4.3.1 – 4-8Perc – Pf – Acdn – Hp – Str(12.12.10.8.8). In this concerto, the solo piano was conceived as a disembodied voice. It tries to tell its own story in endless variations, wavering, almost painful and inevitably unstoppable on an uncertain quest. It seeks its ultimate silence through its own excess of speech: an incessant, compulsive soliloquy. A musical protagonist being on the abyss of non-being, in the midst of shadowy apparitions trapped in limbo. Commissioned by Roche as part of Roche Commissions for the Lucerne Festival, the work was premiered on 4 September 2021 at the KKL, Lucerne by Nicholas Hodges (piano) and the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, under the baton of Enno Poppe, with a slightly reduced orchestration. The first performance with full forces took place on 30 March 2022 at the Southbank Centre, London with Nicholas Hodges and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner.