- Stigmi-Anadrasi ("Moment-Feedback") (2002)
-
Sofia Kamayianni
for string quartet
ca. 4'45"
- Janus Quartet (1983)
-
Ruth Lomon
for string quartet
ca. 18'30"
The Janus Quartet was composed during a stay at the MacDowell colony in Peterborough, N.H. I was there during the months of November and December in 1983. As I started to work on the quartet the snow began to fall -- it was a very straight snowfall -- not a trace of wind. The windows of my studio looked out on stands of firs and slender birches. The opening of this quartet tries to capture that serenity. The theme is shared between the two violins; the viola and cello are playing a D harmonic with the viola playing the note a quarter tone higher. You probably won't experience this as another tone but as a beat or pulsing of the note. This section is titled ''when the snow is falling." There follows a lively melodic and rhythmic development which closes at midpoint in the piece with a section reflecting the quarter-tone pedal point of the opening and leading into a recapitulation of what I'll call the ''snow'' theme, this time with the theme dispersed through the four instruments. This recapitulation leads into the second section of the quartet titled ''Remembrance of things passed." You may hear an echo of Schumann, a short phrase from Barber's Adagio for Strings, perhaps too short to pick it out but these echoes set the mood of this section. A quote from Beethoven's 15th quartet heightens the drama and leads into a climax coming to rest on a calm, cantabile close. The cellist closes with a theme which has been used as an accompaniement to the little fragments of Schumann and Barber. It is a quote from a setting of Blake's poem INJUNCTION which I composed in 1962.
The Angel that presided o'er my birth said
"little creature born of joy and mirth
Go love without the help of anything on earth".
Composed for the Janus String Quartet during a residency at the MacDowell Colony.
- Flames Rising and Falling to the Sea (1988)
-
Anna Rubin
for string quartet
Flames Rising from the Sea (1988) for string quartet is a one-movement work emphasizing melismatic and florid writing in a hereophonic texture. The note D perfumes the piece anchoring the atonal language of the piece.
- Movement for String Quartet (1963)
-
Eleanor Hovda
for string quartet
- Into the Brightening Air (1999)
-
Lois V Vierk
for string quartet
Into the Brightening Air dates originally dates from 1994, but was revised in 1999. It was conceived as a dance piece for Karen Bamonte Danceworks W (despite its considerable abstraction, the rhythmic thrust and harmonic openness of Vierk's music make it especially successful for dance, rather like Stravinsky's). This work shows the most recent development in her music, embodied in the music's flow. The piece creates the by-now expected accumulation of energy in its opening minutes, but then, even as it grows in density, it also begins to slow down and open up, and we find ourselves in a new landscape, more spacious and generous than we had known before. While not following a traditional format, the music does seem to exist in some sort of multi-movement form, played without pause. Perhaps this trajectory is derived from the Yeats poem "The Song of the Wandering Aengus", which inspired the title: in the poem the writer catches a "silver trout" which metamorphoses into a "glimmering girl" and "faded through the brightening air", leaving him with a lifelong sense of loss and yearning.
--Robert Carl
Recording is by:
Eva Gruesser, violin
Patricia Davis, violin
Lois Martin, viola
Bruce Wang, cello
from CD:
Tzadik 7056 "Lois V Vierk: River Beneath the River"
Click here to view the CD on Tzadik.
- River Beneath the River (1993)
-
Lois V Vierk
for string quartet
Currents of sound made up of string phrases and textures of tremolos, glissandos, sustained sounds, and highly articulated and accented passages flow through this piece. The currents alternately co-exist, separate, and coalesce, in their gradual transformation from a gentle beginning to a dynamic conclusion.
At the beginning of the work, the first violin and cello act together to form one "sound scape". This shape interacts with the sound shape of the second violin and viola. Throughout the piece two or more instruments always act together to form one shape, one sound. the music unfolds slowly. The constant transforming and developing of the sound shapes and relationships employ principles which I call "exponential structure". This has to do with rates of change of musical materials, which in this work are constantly increasing by an exponential factor.
The tern "river beneath the river" comes from the Spanish expression "rio abajo rio", which refers to the innermost soul, the depest expression of a human.
This work was commissioned by the Barbican Center of London for the Kronos Quartet.
Recording is by:
Eva Gruesser, violin
Patricia Davis, violin
Lois Martin, viola
Bruce Wang, cello
from CD:
Tzadik 7056 "Lois V Vierk: River Beneath the River"
Click here to view the CD on Tzadik.