Aria Notturna is a quiet, sustained piece, but uses a dark, jazz-oriented harmonic language consisting largely of full six- and seven-note harmonies much of the time. When Dan Kessner asked me to write something for him and his wife Dolly to premiere at the Forfest Kromeriz 2000 (a festival of contemporary arts with a spiritual orientation in the Czech Republic), he described the romantic, Old World atmosphere of the sixteenth century castle in which it would be performed. (In fact, the concert took place in the very room that the concert scenes in the movie Amadeus were filmed.)

The work uses a specific chord progression, stated explicitly by the piano at the outset, as a refrain throughout. The rest of the work draws from those same chords in a free, almost improvisatory way. The alto flute and piano rarely seem to be aware of one another: the flute's long, song-like melodies float in a disconnected haze over the business of the piano. While entirely in keeping with the spirit of the work, I have to admit this was more a result of restraint on my part in the flute writing. The alto flute, quite a bit larger and pitched a perfect fourth lower than the familiar C flute, is a slow-speaking, languid instrument with a very rich tone.