DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

String Quartet No. 3 (2010-14)

Duration: 32:00

 

I. Spinning Gold

II. Star Sapphire

III. Quicksilver

IV. Black Diamond

 

Much of my music features a sort of incessant driving energy coupled with big statements, and this piece is no different. The title of the first movement, "Spinning Gold," comes from an image that came to me as I was writing the piece. As always, I was up against a  deadline, writing the climax of this piece at about 3:30 in the morning one night, and somehow the image of the old fairytale about spinning straw into gold seemed appropriate to the textures of the piece, and also seemed directly related to the act of playing a stringed instrument as well. The movement ends uncertainly, leaving many questions for the following three movements to answer. The second movement, "Star Sapphire," takes motivic and harmonic material from the first movement and refracts it into a variety of forms and textures. "Quicksilver" sees the driving sixteenth-notes return, but now with a jagged rhythmic edge. This short scherzo leads directly into the opening of "Black Diamond," a dark passacaglia that ultimately develops into a fugue of dizzying instrumental virtuosity.

 

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First Performance: June 17th, 2010 ("Spinning Gold" only)

 UNL Chamber Music Institute, Sheldon Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE

 Tetra String Quartet: Chrystal Smothers, Heidi Wright, violins; Louis Pritivera; Jenna

 Dalbey, cello

 

I. Spinning Gold

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.
DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.