STRING QUARTET
Year of composition: 2021
Instrumentation: string quartet
Duration: 24′
Movements: I. Canzona, II. Variations, III. Chorale
Commissioned by Quatuor Molinari, with financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts
Premiere: Quatuor Molinari
Conservatoire de Montréal
May 20, 2022
PROGRAMME NOTE
My string quartet is cast in three parts, with an expansive inner frame flanked by somewhat shorter outer movements. The first movement Canzonarefers to a popular musical genre of the Italian renaissance and early baroque period often characterized by alternating polyphonic and homophonic sections. Similarly the opening movement of my quartet features drastic shifts in mood and texture, pivoting suddenly between unified ensemble playing and densely contrapuntal passages.Variationsis larger in scope, unfolding at a slower pace than the preceding movement and timbrally differentiated through the use of leather mutes. In contrast with the harmonic variety of Canzona, Variationsuses a static modal scheme centered on the open D string of the violin and viola. Another core aspect of this movement is the repetition and near-repetition of musical cells, which creates a hypnotic ‘looping’ effect meant to attune the listener’s ear to small gradations in sound. Chorale recalls the homogenous textures of the first movement, stretching them out in time to produce a quasi-vocal effect in the string parts. The quartet ends introspectively, with an echo of its opening lines fading to nothing in the final measures.