Strong Resolve (2025)

I called Paul Sekhri, the dedicatee, and asked him what exactly it was that he found so deeply alluring about Rachmaninov. To my surprise, he wrote back two seconds later with a simple harmonic example: C minor, E major, Ab major, C minor. This sort of harmonic wiggling is quite foreign to my native tongue, which uses single-pitch pivots and has a relatively slow harmonic heartbeat. I took this as a challenge, and wrote a short series of variations on that exact progression. The theme, as it were, is presented as a lilting short-long pattern, with each chord repeated twice. The first variation is a vaguely unstable syncopated cross-hands affair, which begins to have hiccoughs and abrupt changes of tack. The second returns to the lilt, but here with a high descant. The third is a perpetual motion machine, which goes off-kilter, skittering back through the previous variations and collecting new information on the way. The piece ends quietly and completely in my own harmonic language, with the instability and romantic yearning replaced by a series of six, bell-like chimes.

– Nico Muhly