April 05, 2009
String Quartet #5 To Be Premiered in Paris
April 30 at the Fondation des Etats-Unis, my fifth string quartet will be premiered in Paris by the Quatuor de l'Orchestre 2021.
String Quartet #5 is a transcription/extension of my string trio, Tetra-Mnemosyne VII. I'm told that a studio recording is also in the works and I'll put this up as soon as possible!
Program Notes:
My String Quartet #5 is a transcription and a musical extension of my seventh string trio, written in early 2001. My music, for the few years before that, had been becoming increasingly complex and this piece was an attempt, to write in a simpler and more directly emotional style. I had been seriously listening to the middle string quartets of Beethoven for several months, and that listening informed the composition of the piece harmonically, texturally, and in the approach to the climax. The great 8th string quartet of Shostakovich was also a model in my attempt to have simple materials drive a piece, not in a naive folkloric or utopian way, but in a manner that was new in how it continually digested its materials, reusing them in a single movement. There are continuous disruptive interruptions that cause the listener to rethink the musical materials and these are accomplished not in modernist or ironic modalities but through the innate dramatic possibilities of the musical materials. The materials, were chosen, in fact, to be explodable, and reconfigurable in multiple ways. Many of the materials are influenced by Middle Eastern melodies, and additionally, some themes were directly influenced by recent American heavy metal tunes. These melodic influences are intentionally subtle and chosen for their musical potential and are not intended to promote any type of political or cultural reading.
Tetra-Mnemonsyne VII for String Quartet - Score
Tetra-Mnemonsyne VII for String Quartet - Violin I Part
Tetra-Mnemonsyne VII for String Quartet - Violin II Part
Tetra-Mnemonsyne VII for String Quartet - Viola Part
Tetra-Mnemonsyne VII for String Quartet - Cello Part
Here's a live rehearsal recording of the string trio version by Nigel and some friends. It's very loose, but you can get a good feeling about the piece.
Tetra-Mnemosyne - Informal Rehearsal Recording
Posted by jeff at April 5, 2009 02:21 PM