Composer’s Note:

Soon after separating from my husband of 22 years, I needed to write some music that would express the sadness within me. As I went on I realized that my feelings were more complex than sheer sadness: there was anger and bitterness, but also joy for a new beginning, and for the good things I had. So there are many moods in this piece, which is subtitled “A Collection of Reflections” – reflections implying both those in a mirror, or in slightly disturbed water, and those that occur in one’s thoughts while daydreaming.

It explores the range and scope of the solo cello, using a twelve-tone row mainly as a unifying device. The row is not used strictly, and is unusual in being almost entirely scalar; it is presented in its downward version in the first twelve notes of the piece.

I wrote Soliloquy for my oldest son, a cello student at Oberlin at that time, who gave it its premiere in Richmond, Virginia in 1980. He has played it on many occasions since the