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The String Quartet: 1972+

39K views 267 replies 43 participants last post by  chesapeake bay 
#1 · (Edited)
The string quartet has always been a favorite form of mine, and the 20th century saw a growth in the number of works being written multiply dramatically. Bartok, Shostakovich, Weinberg, Carter all wrote what are generally considered great works for the string quartet.

They continue to be written well into the 21st century, I discover new works just about every day, and will be posting some of them in the coming days.

But here's one from 1975 that I just found by a composer I'd not heard of before.



Friedrich Goldmann: Streichquartett Nr. 1 (1975)
Arditti Quartet

Please post your contemporary string quartets as nominations for a YouTube playlist.

Thanks for participating.
 
#188 ·
Coral Douglas : on the perpetual becoming of selves
2022

Leah Asher (violin),
Marina Kifferstein (violin),
Carrie Frey (viola),
Meaghan Burke (cello)



Coral Douglas (b. 1999, she/they) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist, focusing on semiotics, perception, and communication.

As a composer, Douglas' focus lies within complex textures and multifaceted expressivity, owing much of their musical ideas to the shared space between psychology and music. Her compositions often seek to reinvent traditional linear models through structural innovation. Coral places high value on composer-performer collaboration as an extension of their perspective-based philosophy.
 
#196 · (Edited)
Adeliia Faizullina
My Face Held the Sky (2021)

For String Quartet
Duration: 11'
Written for the Del Sol Quartet Composer Incubator.
Premiered by the Del Sol Quartet on September 4, 2021.



Benjamin Kreith (violin), Samuel Weiser (violin), Charlton Lee (viola), and Kathryn Bates (cello)

Adeliia (Adele) Faizullina (b.1988) is an Uzbekistan-born Tatar composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and quray player. As a composer, she explores cutting-edge vocal colors and paints delicate and vibrant atmospheres inspired by the music and poetry of Tatar folklore. The Washington Post has praised her compositions as "vast and varied, encompassing memory and imagination."

Her recent commissions include works for Jennifer Koh, the Tesla Quartet, Johnny Gandelsman, and the Metropolis Ensemble. Her works have also been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Albany Symphony, Kronos Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, the Del Sol Quartet, Ashley Bathgate, Stephanie Lamprea, and Duo Cortona.

Adeliia was one of seven composers to be selected for the Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute in 2022. She was a guest artist at Play On Philly in 2021, and is a member of Composing Earth 2022-2023, by the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. (more)

 
#197 ·
Nils Henrik Asheim
Broken Line – For String Quartet

Premier: Vertavo String Quartet, 2004



In BROKEN LINE, the composer Nils Henrik Asheim aims for a ”poetry of possibilities”. The music is open-ended and transparent.

From the start of the piece, focus rapidly shifts between four different material strands: harmonious, breathing chords, a very slowly ascending line, elegiac solo phrases, and small flimmer-like ”jungles” of rapid signals.

The material strands evolve in parallel. Ruptures between the strands result in an irregular shift between fast and slow, or between close and distant, creating the broken line which is the ”life rhythm” of the piece.

The composer has in the recent years been eagerly concerned with improvisation, and aims to convert this experience into composed music - not exactly by asking the musicians to improvise, but by provoking an attitude of independence.

Some places, the composer gives the musicians freedom in the shaping of detail and synchronization. Changes of colour and textures are explained to the musicians by metaphorical instructions like ”flame”, ”stone”, ”ashes” etc. The exact solution to these instructions would have to be found by each ensemble individually.

BROKEN LINE is composed for the Vertavo Quartet, on commission from Oslo Chamber Music Festival and TONO (Norwegian Performing Rights Society)

Nils Henrik Asheim
 
#204 ·

American composer Bryce Dessner(1976) plays guitar in the rock band the National's and also composes classical music with great success.
He combines modernity with tradition and does not shy away from spiritual pieces like Tenebre (2012) which exists in ensemble version and in a string quartet version played here by the Kronos Quartet. The quartet is based on the Holy Week Service which is inverted by Dessner who brings us from darkness into light and treats us to an epic final flourish.
 
#211 ·
Aracne, mon troisième quatuor à cordes, s’articule autour d’une oeuvre particulière de Velázquez, Les Fileuses, dans lequel le peintre espagnol libère la peinture des ‘affetti’, traduisant ainsi une démarche portée volontairement vers le réel, vers une réalité que l’on pourrait qualifier de vivante. Le regard du spectateur et la relation affective qui se développe en conséquence avec les figures du tableau provient alors de la ‘sensation de vie’ qui se transmet directement à celui-ci plutôt que de l’effet produit par les postures et les expressions des personnages représentés. Le style de Velasquez, si libre et si ouvert et dont les coups de pinceau rendent la matière et le temps palpables, permet au spectateur de communiquer par la seule sensation d’une présence vivante.
Ainsi, cette ‘hyper-réalité picturale’, si chère à Velázquez, qui transgresse les limites de la simple représentation pour mettre en valeur la plasticité presque musicale de son art à travers la technique de la peinture à l’huile, m’inspire un paysage sonore par lequel je tente de transcender mon propre langage musical et d’explorer de nouvelles dimensions du quatuor à cordes qui offrent la possibilité pour l’interprète de trouver des domaines de liberté, jusqu’ici inexploités dans mon écriture.
Deux concepts qui sont à la base des Fileuses ont été au centre de mon travail: l’inversion et de la transformation. Dans ce tableau, Velázquez inverse étonnamment l’importances du thème principal: le mythe d'Arachné, et plus particulièrement le moment où la déesse Pallas punit son jeune adversaire humain, occupe le petit espace central du fonds –comme si une araignée aurait fait sa toile dessus. En revanche, la partie principale du tableau est occuppée par cinq jeunes femmes, qui préparent la laine pour le tissage. À leur tour, ces femmes semblent être un renversement radical des Ignudi de la Chapelle Sixtine de Michel-Ange: chez ce dernier sont des hommes musclés, possedant des reliefs marqués et pinceau serré luttant contre la toile, mais chez Velázquez sont des femmes graciles qui travaillent humblement en harmonie.
De même, dans Aracne, j’inverse le centre de gravité sonore fourni par les quatre cordes et j’ajoute une "cinquième corde» à chaque intrument -un fil en soie- dont on a la possibilité de moduler de façon dynamique sa tension pendant qu’il est joué avec l’archet. Ce fil devient une sorte de «synthétiseur» qui élargis puissamment la capacité expressive du quatuor et qui renverse à la fois sa qualité acoustique et son langage archétypique.
L'autre concept de base est la transformation. Tout d'abord, la transformation de la jeune et arrogante Arachné en araignée condamné par Pallas, comme décrit Ovide dans les Métamorphoses, a tisser sa toile chaque matin. À son tour, Velázquez transforme le fixe, la représentation picturale paradigmatique statique et contre nature de Michel-Ange en mouvement, en pur dynamisme, en vie incarnée, jusqu’au point où ces mouvements sont reflétées dans les larges coups de pinceau visibles sur la toile. Ainsi, Aracne, qui commence à exposer avec beaucoup d'emphase des larges accords qui font vibrer l'ensemble du quatuor avec une théâtralité petrifiée sans grand mystère, devient progressivement, et presque littéralement, le groupe de fileuses que Velázquez a peint au premier plan. En même temps, ce qui ressemble à une forme assez standard, se transforme rapidement en une énorme araignée «musicale» qui porte sa toile à la limite du concevable.
Je révéle ainsi les «fantasmes» qui ont inspiré la composition d’Aracne: transformer peu a peu physiquement le propre quatuor Tana en la scène principale des Fileuses de Velázquez et en même temps métamorphoser la ‘chose humaine’ en araignée, convertir la forme de quatuor paradigmatique en une boucle sans fin qui ressemble à une toile d'araignée qui se tisse et tisse jusqu’à aboutir des formes monstrueuses.
Ainsi, dans Aracne, j’essaye de caresser acoustiquement les rugosités que notre expérience du temps et de l’espace imprime dans notre conscience tout au long de l’écoute, tout en sculptant notre mémoire.
Aracne est dediée affectueusement au grand peintre catalan Francesc Miñarro, avec qui j’ai appris l’art de peindre dès très jeune age, et aux formidables et intrepides musiciens du Quatuor Tana.
Hèctor Parra, 09.04.2015 Paris







 
#217 ·

Toshio Hosokawa (1955) is not only a great composer, but also a very dear human being. His operas are among the best in the contemporary repertoire and his Matsukaze inspired by Noh Play is otherworldly.
So is most of his chamber music and "Blossoming" (2007) has the lotus flower as its main image; its bud is blossoming towards the morning sunshine. As a rule i always listen again to the pieces i post and blossoming is rewarding in many respects: the subtlety, the beguiling sounds, the feeling of growing.
The Arditti Quartet is the usual culprit.
 
#220 ·

Tensio (2010), the second SQ (with electronics) by French composer Philippe Manoury (1952) which has as its focus the fundamental difference between time organised by machines and the one organised by human beings.
According to Manoury organisation of time in electronic music is still limited, mais some progress has been made and Tensio benefits from this.
 
#223 ·
Jindřich Feld : String Quartet No. 5 (1978-79)
Prazak Quartet



Jindřich Feld (1925–2007) was a Czech composer of classical music. Feld forged aesthetic guidelines during more than half a century of activity and admitted having initially felt close to Martinů, but even more to the French school of Debussy to Messiaen, including Honegger. Above all however, he felt akin with the more French side of Stravinsky and Prokofiev as well as the ethnic side of Bartók.

Feld wrote six string quartets, Nos 4, 5, and 6 have been recorded by the Prazak Quartet.
 
#224 ·
Jürg Frey : String Quartet No. 3
Quatuor Bozzini



When I think of Jürg Frey I think of a composer following in the style of Morton Feldman. But of course he is not simply imitating Feldman, but creating from his own unique aesthetic perspective. I am always interested in hearing what Jürg Frey has up his sleeve.
 
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