Lidström, Mats - Suite for Solo Cello

I arrived in New York City from Sweden on a warm September evening to take up my studies with Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School of the Performing Arts. I was 18 years old. The first week I had fish for supper every day, thinking Mother would approve. During that time, leading up to my first lesson, I composed the suite presented here as a gift to my new teacher.

The 2004 revision meant minor changes to the first five movements and the scrapping of the sixth. The sixth, the suite's final movement, was initially a prelude and fugue, a result of the theory lessons with composer Lawrence Widdoes – and in C minor at that. I decided to replace it with the Ave Maria, music written a month after September 11 2001. As a citizen of our world, I was desperate to counter inhumanity with positive creativity. The movement was written for the acoustics of a church.

CONTENTS

• I. Paraphrase
• II. Affettuoso
• III. Menuet
• IV. Sarabande
• V. Capriccio
• VI. Ave Maria