i) Andante - Lento -Andante ii) Largo iii) Adagio - Andante - Adagio - Andante iv) Steady - Lento - Steady
Whilst composing this piece I realised that I wanted to use one palette of thematic ideas across the whole work and create the individual character of each movement from the way in which the thematic material is handled.The main materials used are a: Syncopated rhythm (of the kind that first appears in the opening bar) in some shape or form permeates nearly all of the fast material. Chromatic falling scale gesture which end movts. 1,3 & 4.This motif feeds the whole piece - scalic gestures, glissandi, long-term upward/downward progressions. Major 7th chord & inversions.Exploration of two parallel fifth chords that can make up this chord.
I also tried to create further unity by making the whole piece a study in dramatic tension. Whilst writing the String Quartet, I was producing my Masters dissertation on Ligeti’s Piano Etudes and his influence has leaked more heavily into this piece than anything else I have written. This was partly a conscious decision (Why waste time studying other composers, if not to plunder and adapt their best ideas?), partly the subliminal effect of being immersed in his music.At all times the influence remains just that.The piece is my own and there is no attempt at pastiche.
The opening movement begins with the instruments divided into upper and lower pairings (2 violins and viola/cello).Both pairs start with syncopated lines that gradually rise in pitch and increase in speed.Rising fast chromatic scales appear briefly and after one of these there is a short, high, slow interlude.The syncopated material returns and eventually collapses into another chromatic scale, this time falling in a dramatic gesture that ends this and the final two movements.
The second movement is the only movement that remains in a single tempo (all the other movements explore the contrast of fast and slow material).At the core of this movement is the exploration and distortion of a single “traditional” chord (a major 7th chord). Slow glissandi and gradually shifting microtonal harmonies give the piece most of its character with the effect being similar to looking through a kaleidoscope and very, very gradually turning the end.Several possible pairs of 2-note chords are locked in the major 7th chord and, although different pairings are explored, I have focused on the two pairs of fifths, stacked a major third apart.The pairs, gradually diverge and although the major 7th chord does briefly resurface in the middle of the piece, It is not until the final bars that kaleidoscope comes full circle back to the opening tetra-chord.
The third movement is a contrapuntal exploration of the syncopated material.This is contrasted with slow high material.
In the final movement the glissandi and open 5ths return, this time as ever-rising figures that speed up giving way to progressively accelerating rising scale patterns.Interlocking and gradually mutating ostinati are interrupted by a sequence of slowly rising major 7th chords, but eventually lead to frenetic rising passage-work that is cut short in the dramatic falling chromatic scale motif that ends the first and third movements, this time sounding absolute and final.