Composer’s note:

November Field was commissioned by fellow bassist William Hawthorne for a faculty double bass recital at The Catholic University of America. The somewhat unusual instrumentation a great attraction to the project for me” was at his request, since he wished to play a duo with each performer in the Quintet, op. 39 by Prokofiev, which concluded the program. The extreme contrast in the ranges and timbres of the double bass and oboe suggested to me a rather austere duo, not unlike the stark beauty in late fall of the rolling open fields often present in mid–Atlantic landscapes of the US.