|
String Quartet (1984) |
string quartet - 30'
My String Quartet was written in 1984. It is a second contribution to this medium, the first Nobody's Jig, dating from 1980-81. This piece is in one continuous movement divided into seven sections. The first (centred on the note D, two ledger lines above the treble stave) begins with independent 'rubati', becomes Very Fast and then slows down to a very sustained tempo, broken by unrestful silences.
The second section is pizzicato throughout in the first violin, and overall in a rapid tempo (and eventually both poly-metric and poly-temporal - the metronomic pulse of the four parts being in the proportions 5:6:7:8).
The third, which overlaps the second, is a long melody (in the region of D above middle C) exactly metred in one part and more liberally 'accompanied' by trills and other embellishments in two others.
The fourth section is also polytemporal (in the proportions 4:5:7:9) and develops and extends the preceding material, eventually also expanding the narrow tessitura outwards.
The fifth sections pairs the two violins (arco) against the viola and cello (snap-pizzicato), while the sixth (all instruments ordinary pizzicato) recalls the music of sections 2 and 4 (again in the polytemporal proportions 4:5:7:9). The final section overlaps the sixth and begins with trills, but gradually reverts to a combination of ordinary and snapped pizzicato.
Almost all the musical material is constructed from very narrow-width pitch spectra (most clearly identified at the opening), and only rarely becomes more expansive or uses any intervals wider than thirds.
Michael Finnissy