Oskolki, also translated as Broken Pieces, is a ten-movement chamber work for violin and piano, written in 2001 and dedicated to Gidon Kremer.

The title means “shards” and also refers to what remains after everything else has been shattered. In the composer’s note, Auerbach connects the work to memory, childhood, silence and the search for an attentive listener.

The work was written immediately after Auerbach’s first experience of playing music with Gidon Kremer at the Lockenhaus Festival in the summer of 2001. It bears the same title as Kremer’s book Oskolki, Gedankensplitter, which contains memories of his childhood.

• Form Ten movements.
• Title Broken Pieces.
• Forces Violin and piano.

Time is not a river. It certainly does not run in just one direction, from birth to death. Birth is not a beginning and death is not an end. According to the law inherent in every good structure, be it a short story, a symphony, a castle or a human life, the beginning already contains the end from the outset, and the end already contains the beginning.

It is memory that shapes us and unites the past and the future into the present. Oskolki means shards. But it also refers to what remains after everything else has been shattered. What remains. Memory. Childhood. Endlessness. Silence.

Oskolki was written immediately after my first experience of playing music with Gidon Kremer at the Lockenhaus Festival in the summer of 2001. It bears the same title as Gidon’s book, Oskolki, Gedankensplitter, which contains memories of his childhood, one of the best books ever written on this subject.

My composition contains many pauses, and sometimes I think that the pauses are more important than the notes. I believe that only in silence are you able to hear yourself. Only in silence can you dare to truly recognise yourself and be sincere. The most important thoughts and realisations only come to us in silence.

Oskolki is a music of loneliness, fears and memories. It is almost too personal to be performed in public, yet it seeks contact with the listener. The work is a musical monologue that yearns to become a dialogue. It is a search for an indulgent and attentive listener, a labyrinth of memories in search of childhood as the very first beginning and of oneself in the ruins of memories.

Oskolki was written for Gidon Kremer, to whom it is also dedicated.

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