string quartet (2024)

Violin 1

Violin 2

Viola

Violoncello

Four movements

Duration ca. 22'

One of the hallmarks of the string quartet (two violins, viola, and cello) is that the four musicians are each in their own way a soloist but can also play together and interact as a unified ensemble with one voice, a "super-string" voice with an enormous range yet still with a unified tone color.  

This contrast in blended individuality between four string players who sit closely together as they perform and keep in physical and visual contact also results in a unique opportunity for rhythmic coordination found in the entire string quartet repertory.   In my String Quartet composed in 2024, underlying cross-rhythms permeate the entire work.  This use of closely coordinated rhythm is however always in the background, gently supporting the primary emphasis on melody.  For the listener what matters is melody soaring above or embedded within rhythmic backgrounds that keep the underlying energy fresh and give the performers an opportunity to coordinate, sometimes in very simple lyrical patterns, at other times in a syncopated dance.

The quartet has four movements in the traditional sequence of a driven melodic and dramatic "sonata style" first movement, a slower lyrical second movement, a dance-inspired third movement, and a syncopated energetic finale. While the four instruments are always independent, the first violin often takes the lead  melody, in the tradition of composers such as Haydn where the string quartet sometimes impresses as a mini violin concerto. 

The first movement begins with what seems like a familiar rhythmic and melodic pattern with a chromatically descending viola line and repeated pulsing accompaniment notes in the background. The cello and violin soon enter, but now in triple meter (groups of three beats) with a lyrical melody.   This evolving "two versus three" rhythmic background, along with the soaring melody, is the "first theme."

This  is followed by a gradual lyrical transition into a flowing arpeggio accompaniment above which a violin melody sings, the "second theme" of the movement, a flowing song. 

These two contrasting themes constantly develop, and alternate in a dramatic interplay that builds tension until the two “themes” combine in  a majestic peroration.

The second movement is a dramatic operatic scene, an elegiac song of farewell, where the first violin has the continuously soaring and descending aria, while the other instruments play with their mutes on, consoling, interweaving, supporting, falling, as if from behind a veil of grief. This song-like elegy begins earthbound with voices in unison. A tension emerges, a blossoming from pure unison expanding like a natural process to a cluster of closely moving notes, then organically rising into a high, floating luminous richly harmonized paean. This aria of farewell cycles like waves of the sea several times in the movement, as if gravity itself brings the song back to a beautiful yet dissonant earth before resuming the ever-higher journey upwards. The second violin, viola, and cello console the singer. They echo the phrases, support with glowing harmony, and move gently in counterpoint, rising and falling in turn. The duple vs. triple cross-rhythms are here a gentle slow moving two against three, flowing triplets that rise and fall.

The third movement is dance-inspired, and its form accepts the string quartet classical era forebears where the third movement was a “minuet and trio,” here beginning with viola and second violin in the time signature of 6/8 (two groups of three pulses each) while the cello supports with off-beat pizzicato (plucked) chords in 3/4 time (three beats of two pulses each). The gentle swaying slightly out of time effect resulting from these lilting metric combinations is then joined by a first violin melody that soars above adding a lyrical and rhythmic layer. 

The central “trio” section features shimmering violins and a swaying aria-like viola solo under cello pizzicato plucked arpeggios, followed by a lyrical cello solo which leads into a shortened but expanded return to the first section, but now more impassioned both lyrically and metrically, leading to a burst of light and a return to the viola's steady beat from the movement's opening, now resolved into plucked chords from the other three players.  

The fourth movement begins with an evocation of bells, the “ringing changes’ still heard in church bell towers in England, where simple descending scales are rhythmically varied to form off-beat patterns from a simple descending, rising, and interlocked musical scale. This bell motif returns several times,  in several variants from ringing, to ghostly sul ponticello special bowing effects, to bell-like harmonics, to percussiveness, often featuring pizzicato (plucked) harmonics in the cello like a struck bell.

In contrasting sections, the first violin has  joyous sixteenth-note "presto" exciting runs in a virtuosic syncopated perpetual motion, often in the time signature 7/8 (pulsing 3, 2, 2). The two sections alternate between syncopated dancing patterns, concerto-like virtuosic scales  and bell patterns building to an exuberant finale.

The String Quartet has been recorded by the Los Angeles-based Lyris Quartet and released by the First Leaf Music label on digital music services worldwide. 

The elegiac second movement has also been adapted and expanded into a work for string orchestra, adding several minutes and some dramatic and instrumental expansion, under the title Her Soul in the Stars. While based on the slow movement of the string quartet, Her Soul in the Stars is very much a separate work with a deeper musical and dramatic  treatment intended for a symphonic audience.  It has been recorded by the Budapest Scoring Orchestra on the First Leaf Music label and is also available for streaming on all digital music services.

Score and parts available from Subito Music Corp. www.subitomusic.com

Recorded by The Lyris Quartet on First Leaf Music records.

Available on all digital music streaming services (Release date forthcoming in January 2025).