Program note
STRINGWARE was written for my DMA recital at the Yale School of Music, as an homage to Bartók's Divertimento and his 5th String Quartet. The work originally comprised five movements. Since then, the first and last — swerve and swank — have each doubled in length and transformed into independent works: Vers le bleu | Vers le rouge for string quartet, and Talaria for wind ensemble. What remains are the three inner movements: two adagios and a scherzo.
SWOON (7')
The first adagio opens with a high, soft floating sound that travels through increasingly lyrical episodes toward a highly emotional ending. The entire piece is built from canons — three-voice, six-voice, harmonized — including the livelier central section, which sits above an accompaniment also derived from canonic manipulations. The last part is an inverted retrograde of the opening. Crescendos and accents that emerge forcefully through the generally soft texture lend the piece a surprisingly powerful emotional impact.
SWITCH (7')
The original core of the cycle, a more or less palindromic scherzo. The quasi-folk quality of the theme and its constant repetition contribute to the ritualistic character of the piece. Built from small cells repeated and imitated in various permutations, it follows an additive trajectory, building to a three-voice canon in the violins floating above a two-voice canon in the lower strings. This dies out, then restarts with similar techniques toward a second, more violent climax, after which the first third of the piece unfolds in retrograde.
SWELL (8'30")
The second adagio shares its theme with swoon, but is altogether more ghostlike — another interpretation of regret, of loss. In successive waves, the theme searches for itself and hardly does, losing itself instead in suspended moods, whispered or thunderous. After a nostalgic viola solo threatened by the low strings, the piece ends with a new canon, followed by a ghostly sarabande that vanishes into the high register and then silence.
Recording
Details
Instrumentation
7 strings or string orchestra
Movements
I. swoon (7')
II. switch (7')
III. swell (8'30")
Duration
23'
Date
1996
Sheet music
Available upon request
Written for
DMA recital
Yale School of Music
First performance
Yale University
New Haven, CT, November 1997
Selected performances
Banff Centre for the Arts
Canada, December 1998