Inner Dialogue

Barbara Heller composed Inner Dialogue with a tonal material consisting of several series of intervals that are put together like a dialog. The composer focuses on upward and downward movements. Barbara Heller writes about this:

"I was particularly emotionally attached to one series of intervals, which can be found at the beginning of the 2nd part (Lento) and the 5th part (Calmo): major sixth, minor second, fourth, major second and tritone. This falling sixth triggered in me the attempt to come back up again with a rising fourth after the semitone step downwards, and then back down again with the whole tone and the tritone – this resulted in an expression that did not let go of me and touched me deeply inside. It was like a trap that I couldn't get out of. And so, in the course of working on the cello piece, it became an inner dialog: with the back and forth downwards and upwards again, a kind of variation-like music that was always - with small changes - a self-questioning, an attempt to free myself from this motif, which I did not succeed in doing.

In this edition, editor Beverley Ellis provides important notes on interpretation.