Music for Cello and Orchestra

The commission was made possible by a donation from the philanthropists Lillian and Maurice Barbash to commemorate their 40th wedding anniversary. The music is cast in a single movement and has a duration of roughly 18 minutes. Instrumentation The work is scored for an orchestra comprising three flutes (doubling piccolo), three oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, bass clarinet, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, three percussionists, piano (doubling celesta), and strings. ==Reception==

Reviewing a 1997 recording of the work, Gramophone wrote, "Leon Kirchner (b.1919), Ma's sometime teacher at Harvard, is a survivor from an older school, placing greater stress on internal logic and intellectual consistency even if he has moved away from the world of Arnold Schoenberg (his own teacher) to forge a personal style of 'euphonious dissonance'. There is here a rich, loving, almost Korngoldian lyricism, at first suppressed, at length permitted to flower." ==References==