mono no aware

Mono no aware is a Japanese phrase roughly translating to the "pathos of things" or "empathy toward things." Best described as a melancholy or wistfulness toward the transient nature of objects and life in general, it is a cultural concept that does not have an equivalent in the English language. A constantly shifting meter, suggesting impermanence, is strung together by a sustained stream of sixteenth notes in the piano part. The idea of growth and withering away are built into the piece through a metrical process involving a repeating melodic idea. The initial form of the idea, comprised exclusively of sixteenth notes, is altered through the addition or subtraction of a single note. In this manner, what was at first a fourteen-note idea is reduced to thirteen, then twelve, and continues to wither away until the process is halted by the introduction of a different idea. Polymeter features prominently in the music's construction, often putting the violin’s metric organization at odds with the divisions in the piano part.