Program Note

When the Lyris Quartet approached me to compose a piece for this project, I thought that it was a remarkable idea— to compose a sort of commentary on the story of Janáček’s Intimate Letters. The first thing — the only thing, really — that popped into my mind was the tragedy of unrequited love (hence the title, Unrequited). The first time I heard Janáček’s Intimate Letters performed live, the emotion of the piece jumped out at me: the wild shifts of tempo, the beautiful and plaintive melodies, the stark dynamic contrasts. I wanted to illustrate my perspective on this strange relationship between Janáček and Kamila Stösslová, by telling the story of a man who goes through different phases of emotion, before finally coming to terms with the fact that his love for her is one-sided— it will never be returned the way he would like. I sought to compose Unrequited so that it moves, like the five stages of grief, through a variety of emotions – from romantic, pure love, through paranoid, obsessive, neurotic possessiveness, arriving finally at despondent acceptance.