Premiered by Teagan Faran

Temptress was an interesting experiment for me as a composer, as it was an opportunity to explore the possibility of translating the musical hallmarks of progressive metal, such as fast, syncopated notes, bass ostinati, and irregular rhythm, onto a single instrument—a very high-flying one, at that. I was initially uncertain of whether this was doable, but I quickly was pleasantly surprised to find that the ideas that emerged fit both the instrument and the aesthetic vision I had set out for the piece.

As with many of my pieces, I chose a title from the very beginning, and allowed it to be a focal point behind my ideas as a way of verbally encapsulating the piece’s essence. This piece lives up to its title in a couple of ways. For one, the violin has a long-standing mythos of devilishness (Paganini and Ysaÿe come to mind). I felt the piece needed to evoke that essential part of the violin’s character. It possesses, more than most instruments, a capacity to be sublimely sweet, or as nasty as sin with but the smallest changes in intention, pitch, bow pressure, and articulation.

The music, as a result, is an exploration of this polarity between sweet, angelic tunefulness and devilish, distorted discord. There is a single, lyrical theme that weaves itself in and out of the piece which ends up being interrupted by jagged figures reminiscent of “shredding” in metal: the art of playing very quick notes with heavy distortion. The melody embodies temptation: it lulls the listener into a false sense of security before the sting of the shredding sends them reeling. In the end, the listener can decide which idea emerges victorious in this musical battle of wills.