Nevermore (Suite for Viola & Piano)

Nevermore, for viola and piano. 11-12 minutes. Composed for Charlotte Goode. (2019-2021)

This dramatic, challenging chamber work recounts the emotions coursing through Edgar Allen Poe’s classic works, “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” with modern, neoromantic flair.

A “Gothic Suite” based on poems by Edgar Allen Poe, Nevermore was composed for violist Charlotte Goode between 2019 and 2021. The first movement is “Raven”: A man pines for his lost lover, Lenore; a raven arrives and says the one word, “Nevermore,” mocking the narrator’s sorrow. The viola line is both long-breathed and longing; some gestures from Liszt’s dark side permeate the piano. The dedicatee is also the performer here, and Goode and Hagino work perfectly together. There is a real sense of illness to “Annabel Lee”; perhaps the reverb in the recording could have been a little less here, though. The purity of the bond between Annabel Lee and her lover is the subject of the angels’ jealousy (an interesting concept in and of itself), and the angels kill Annabel Lee, but the connection between the lovers remains. Good’s tuning is perfect, her phrasing eloquent and heartfelt. The final movement is “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and six significant moments from Poe’s tale are depicted in wordless music. (Colin Clarke, Fanfare Magazine)

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An absolutely gorgeous, wonderful, magnificent Sonata for viola and piano…so American. ...a fascinating piano introduction that really nails the interest immediately because it hints at mysteries, then it's followed by the viola's intensely Poe-ish colors and temperament. It's a beauty, again, of narrative imagination, a wonderful piece of writing for viola. It is virtuosic, everything a violist looks for in a recital piece. There are romantic bits in here, some hair-raising twilight zone intervals between notes, if that makes any sense, thrilling, kooky, mysterious, as was the man. It has a tremendous connection to America and American history and American literature. It is a beautiful sonata and it sounds so beautiful. The writing is so gorgeous.

[For Annabelle Lee] I call it magical writing. It's exceptionally sensitive.

The Tell-Tale Heart: the intro, sufficiently terrifying. Very imaginative character development. It's exactly creepy enough to fit the narrative, because it is that narrative, the pulsing, the clicking...the floorboards…Then the beginning of real paranoia. Shades of the shower scene in Psycho - Brava! Disturbingly deliberate ending. (Daniel Kepl)