Composed 2020; 10 minutes

Sri Lankan-born, Dubai-raised, UK- and US-educated Dinuk Wijeratne has based an international career in Halifax, NS, Toronto, ON, and, since 2021, Ottawa, ON, where he is Director of Orchestral Studies and Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa.  He collaborates as composer, conductor, pianist, and creativity consultant with many musicians from several countries, embracing, he says, “the great diversity of my international background 
and influences.”  

Dinuk Wijeratne writes:

It isn't every day that an extremely talented brother-sister duo invites you to write them a piece of music. The sense of occasion was made more meaningful by the fact that the new work would celebrate Beethoven's 250th birth anniversary by responding creatively to one of his cello sonatas—in any way of my choosing.

I remember coming across the scherzo of Beethoven's Op. 69 when I was a teenager. It was at a time when I would marvel quickly at any interesting musical invention (this hasn't changed at all) and I recall loving what Beethoven was doing as he created a melody out of 'off-beat' accents. Motif and melody—it seemed to me—suddenly became 'groove'.

The opening material of this Beethoven scherzo has inspired my music here, as the piece paints a musical portrait of an imaginary sibling. But whose?! Perhaps he or she is another talented member of the Cheng family, or perhaps an imaginary sibling of mine (I am an only child), or perhaps an imaginary sibling of Beethoven himself? At any rate, I decided that this character would be a young person of precocious gifts and mercurial temperament.