for solo double bass
This elegy was written in response to the death of Virginia Bodman, my bass teacher when I was an undergraduate at Michigan State University in the 70s, and my friend and mentor for more than 35 years after. She died in early 2013 at the age of 90. Besides being an excellent and dedicated teacher, she was one of those people who simply make the world around her a better place by their labors and by their example.
After a dramatic, intense opening, it explores several different musical paths, and exploits the unique sound world of the double bass to its full extent before the quiet, but still uneasy, ending.
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