Postscriptum is an afterthought in the literal and musical sense: a compact chamber work that arrives after speech and uses the voice without words. The mezzo-soprano does not carry a literary text; instead, the vocalise becomes another line within the chamber texture, close to breath, recollection and the residue of something already said.

The publisher’s programme note describes the atmosphere as quietly meditative, nostalgic and deeply melancholic—music that can feel strangely familiar while resisting recognition. This tension between remembrance and uncertainty gives the work its peculiar intimacy.

In the second half, marked PPS, the melodic writing begins to dissolve. The piano turns toward ghostly trills while the cello’s glissandi destabilize the earlier lyricism. The work does not conclude by enlarging its material; it allows that material to fade, fracture and become memory.

• Vocalise The mezzo-soprano is a wordless presence rather than a narrator of text.
• Afterthought The title suggests something added after the apparent conclusion—a private continuation.
• PPS The latter part lets the earlier melodic world dissolve into trills, glissandi and spectral residue.

This page is devoted exclusively to the mezzo-soprano, violoncello and piano version of Postscriptum. It is catalogued separately by the publisher from the earlier 2006 Postscriptum for violin, violoncello and piano.

The vocal version was first performed in Washington in 2009 by Sasha Cooke, Alisa Weilerstein and Lera Auerbach. A later recording appears on the Chandos album Russian Roots, where Katharina Konradi is joined by cellist Vashti Mimosa Hunter and pianist Nicholas Rimmer.