SKU: PR.114402020

UPC: 680160005109.

Composed for cellist Barbara Haffner, CADENZAS AND VARIATIONS III is based on the opening of the composer’s Kaddish Requiem composed in the fall of 1971. When Wernick decided to revise portions of the requiem’s first movement, he became intrigued with where the opening cadenza might lead in a totally different context, leading him to use it as the “theme” for the 1973 work. Much of the work was written in the exotic city of Dar es Salaam in a studio overlooking a luxuriant tropical garden of bouganvillia, hibiscus, wild orchids, and flamboyants. None of this is evident in the music, not even the “waltzing” dove which was wonderfully entertaining except during working hours, when he nearly drove the composer mad.