to an utterance

to an utterance by Rebecca Saunders is a 28-minute work for solo piano and orchestra with the following scoring:

3(1/2,picc/3,picc).3.3(1/2,BCl/3,BCl,CbCl).3(1/2/Cbsn) – 4.4.3.1 – 4-8Perc – Pf – Acdn – Hp –Str (12.12.10.8.8).

In this concerto, the solo piano was conceived as a disembodied voice. It tries to tell its own story in endless variations, wavering, quickly painful and inevitably untenable in an uncertain quest. It seeks its ultimate silence through its own excessive voice: an incessant, compulsive soliloquy. A musical protagonist in the abyss of non-being, in the midst of shadowy apparitions trapped in limbo.

The work was commissioned by Roche as part of the Lucerne Festival's Roche Commissions, and was premiered with a reduced light orchestra on 4 September 2021 at the KKL, Lucerne by Nicholas Hodges (piano) and the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, conducted by Enno Poppe.

The first full orchestra performance was on 30 March 2022 at the Southbank Centre, London by Nicholas Hodges and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Gardner.