Encores are too long. This one is a minute and a half but there are a lot of notes. Mostly in 5, it’s a bombastic zoom up and down various arpeggios, always tongue-in-cheek (which makes it a lot harder to play). For use as the encore to the recital for which it was written (as is the case here), before…
This is not an Elegy at all, there’s nothing mournful or melancholic about it. The title is merely a reference to Bernstein’s solo trombone piece ‘Elegy for Mippy II’, which he wrote about his brother’s dog. Ellie is our cat, and this piece is a sort of Day in the Life, following her biorhythms and those of cats in general.…
