Rūta Vitkauskaitė

Programme Note

I wrote ‘Hightet’ based on two old ideas I had for years. One is a direct association with string instruments, for me as a violin player. As I often joke, you can recognize a violinist by their exhausted look from playing high frequencies. In this piece, I explore this very high and sometimes not very pleasant register of the instrument. The second idea came to me when I heard Johannes Schöllhorn’s violin concerto, which was inspired by the changing view of the horizon that one sees when turning around one’s axis. I use long, continuous glissandos, interchanging between instruments, as if creating changing space within static time, and an association with something continuous yet monumental. ‘Hightet’ was commissioned by the “20 Fingers Duo”.