Growing up in Quincy, Illinois, I started playing the cello in the fourth grade in the public schools. Through the succeeding years my favored experiences as a
cellist always involved orchestral or chamber music (I admit to having an ego, but I was never a soloist). Playing the cello was a critical part of my development
as a lyrical composer - I was a part of a high school string quartet that played Ravel's exquisite work, and I fiercely remember the excitement of performing
Beethoven's Seventh in Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Symphony in 1978 (the visceral thrill of playing low B#'s in the coda of the first movement cannot be
explained, only experienced). Because of this background, my cello sonatas are intensely personal works and some of the music I hold dearest to my heart. Further,
they reveal aspects of my tonal idiom, a personal dialect based on expanded tonal and voice-leading principles which I have designed, crafted and developed over many
years.

My first sonata was written as an undergraduate at the Mannes College of Music in New York (when, in the early 1980's, it was still on East 74th Street) and my
second while a graduate student at Duke. The third sonata (the opening work on this recording) was composed while I was teaching at the University of Northern Iowa
in Cedar Falls. This third sonata has a subtitle: "Moon." Additionally, each of the three movements carries both a heading and an ending title. The headings are
classical references, suggesting historical derivations and structural nuances; the endings are poetic, all of which are connected to the primary image of the
sonata. The poetry is meant to open emotional windows into the interior of the piece, rather than suggest specific visual cues. "Aria da Capo (...sings upon
waking.)" begins with an aria for the cello, accompanied by a simple ostinato in the piano. However, this ostinato is deceptively simple, for within it one may find
the seeds for the other two movements of the piece. The middle section of this movement becomes much more rhythmic, with a jazz-like interplay between the
instruments. This "middle section" actually ends the movement, and the expectation of a da capo aria is unfulfilled (for the moment). "Pavane (...receives a
Princess.)" is also in a suggested ternary form. Here, the A sections demonstrate a reinterpretation of the first movement's texture, with another melody in the
cello supported by an ostinato accompaniment. The B section continues the opening flow of the music, but at twice the tempo, giving the music a sense of almost
boundless rushing. There is a brief coda which brings back the opening tempo but, again - as in the first movement - there is no true return. The last movement,
"Galliard (...observes the precious foibles of the Earth.)," begins with a fast, chromatic figure in the piano. This chromatic figure is varied as it unfolds and -
simultaneously in augmentation - it becomes the cello's principal melody. The form of this movement is rhapsodic, suggesting something like a "developing rondo"
with interludes. The first interlude is a brief digression for the solo cello, an unaccompanied meditation on the principal figure. After this, the fast music
continues until we reach a moment which suggests the next interlude. Instead, the final statement of the second movement unfolds and this is then followed by the da
capo aria of the first movement, which had been left unfulfilled. It is as if the final movement's fast music had continued on, spinning into silence, while the
musicians at hand revisited unfinished thoughts.

Sonata No. 3 ("Moon") was composed in 1997. It was premiered on a NACUSA-New York concert at Christ and St. Stephen's Church in New York City on 21 March 1999 by
Grace Lin (cello) and Steven Huter (piano). It is dedicated to my friend, the composer Stephen Jaffe.