A Small Infinite
for violoncello Solo
Perusal score
For perusal only. Please request the performance score before preparing a performance.
Score excerpt
Solo violoncello · ca. 6 minutes · 2025
About the work
Composer’s note
Drawing on Irish poet Pádraig J. Daly’s poem ‘For Sadhbh, aged 5’, A Small Infinite inhabits the fragile, hermetic world of a child’s imagination. The image of a swan on a lake becomes a metaphor for the stillness and sudden ripples of a child’s mind at play.
The music draws on my experience of watching my children absorbed in ‘ritual play’: held within an imagined world, their attention complete, yet the spell easily broken. The piece explores the tension between this inward dream state and the inevitable intrusion of the observer.
Listening preview
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MIDI mockup
A computer-rendered listening preview.
Photo by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash.