Sienna, Burnt and Raw for Guitar and Double Bass

This past Friday guitarist Saffron Sonoda and double bass player Joana Izabelle played the first performance of this duo at Sacred Trinity Church in Salford, UK. They will be recording it later this year. Saffron and Joana call their duo "Her Endangered Melody," so the title of the piece relates tangentially to the subject of the danger of extinction, and the importance of preservation.

I always found the names of the colors “burnt sienna” and “raw sienna” in the Crayola crayon box of my childhood extremely evocative. Sienna is a pigment made of manganese oxide and iron oxide. Because it was used in cave painting, we know that sienna was one of the first pigments that human beings used to express themselves.

In its raw state it is a light brown color (like the finish of a guitar), and in its burnt state it is a deeper brown (like the finish of a double bass). Named for the Italian city of Siena, its use in string instrument varnish began in the early Renaissance.

Burnt sienna was slated for removal from the Crayola box in 2003, but it was saved from extinction due to popular demand. This light-hearted piece serves as a reminder that musical expression and dialogue have survived through difficult times over the millennia. Popular demand will not allow for its extinction.

The cover image, in all its burnt and raw sienna glory, comes from the Cave of Lascaux.

You can listen to a computer-generated recording here.

You can find the music on this page of the IMSLP.