Justin Messina

“Music for Solitude”

Is music conceived for aloneness different than that intended for public performance? 

This work was born out of the extended lockdowns and tumult of 2020 & 2021. These periods of isolation and upheaval led me to rediscover my deeply personal relationship with playing music detached from public performance. Music in solitude became a form of therapy, bolstering me against the outside world. This freed me to consider a piece less from an audience’s perspective and more from that of a person alone with their instrument. My focus became the delight of making the violin ring in a rich acoustic space. I hoped any eventual performance would seem an act of witnessing an artist in a personal moment and not a public declaration.

As the piece neared completion I began to realize it was strongly rooted in an earlier large-scale series I had been unable to complete to my satisfaction. In 2014, I embarked on a field recording project at the Channel Islands in Southern California. The centerpiece of that series was Painted Cave, one of the largest sea caves in the world. The unique acoustics and sounds of the cave contribute to a sacred atmosphere and, at the time, proved too daunting for my own music. Instead I recorded a violist playing excerpts of Bach’s cello suites in the cave over a period of several days. 

Music for Solitude is the piece I was unable to write then, and as such, completes the series. I’m indebted to my close friend Johnny Gandelsman for commissioning the work and allowing me to finish this journey. -Justin Messina

“Music for Solitude” was generously commissioned by Linda Burrows