Nico
Muhly,

Commissioned by the McKim Fund in the Library of Congress for Daniel Hope and Jeffrey Kahane.

Compare Notes begins with a large canon between the violin and the left hand of the piano in slightly awkward rhythmic shapes, and then
dissolves into a more playful traditional canon. All of this simplifies enormously into a sort of chorale with a drone, taking advantage of the open A-string of the violin. The violin then wiggles its way out of this drone material, re-introducing the opening
material. Jeffrey Kahane and Daniel Hope can play anything, so I wanted to give them something rhythmic to chew on!