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pattem, resulting in a highly specialized work stemming from her collaboration with
saxophonist Paul Bro.34
The small percentage of Larsen’s music for strings points to an interesting
dichotomy. On the one hand she wishes that she played a stringed instrument herself:
“Stringed instruments are intimate.. .when one is played, it resonates throughout the
body, soul, and spirit.”35 She also recognizes the acoustical perfection of the instruments
and the rich history of their evolution over the past IOOO years.36 Yet, just two years
before the Viola Sonata was written, Larsen was quoted in Strings magazine as stating:
.. .the cello and viola don’t seem to have much of a place [in American
culture].. .Cultures everywhere in the world evolved the musical
instruments that they needed in order to express themselves. And I believe
that the stringed instruments that make up the heart and the soul of our
symphony orchestras evolved in order to speak both the verbal language
and the language of the soul of their [European] culture. But I don’t see
the orchestral stringed instruments finding their way into any of the
ensembles that American culture has evolved.37
Larsen admits that there are a few American string players (most notably violinist/
fiddler Mark O’Connor) who are successfully finding a place for their instruments in this
culture. However she is critical of the conservatory culture in our country, which she sees
as training young musicians in a one-dimensional way to imitate European music.38 In
34 This partnership earlier produced the work Holy Roller for saxophone and piano. This
work also transcribes the sound of a revivalist preacher’s another distinct type of
American language.
35
Barbieri, 72.
36 Ibid.
38 lbid'
Larsen notes: “Conservatory training is by its very nature and definition training in a
certain repertoire to replicate a certain job. And non-conservatory training is so
piecemeal. Now, Mark O’Connor is doing a yeoman’s job in trying to create a way other
than a conservatory approach to string playing. Still, I don’t think that we actually yet
have an authentic way of speaking on our bowed string instruments.” (Larsen, interview
8/2008).