QUARTETSET
"Confronting the past: it's something all classical music does implicitly. In his ''Quartetset,'' Sebastian Currier does it head-on, from the very opening. A lilting, antic figure that evokes Classical Vienna is immediately subverted by a questioning violin that thrusts its way out of the music's pat form with a hint of neurosis, as if wondering where it should fit. This sets the tone for a dialogue between the Classical tradition and contemporary music, executed in interesting, idiomatic string quartet writing that is eminently listenable -- no mean feat." - New York Times |
Program Note
Quartetset is an extended seven movement work, for string quartet, which creates a dialogue between the past and present. Each of the movements explores this relationship in a different way: in the first movement, "Divided," 18th century gestures melt away into contemporary practice; in the last movement the second violin plays a diatonic set of variations while the other instruments create a foreign world around it. Only two of the seven movements will be heard tonight, the first, "Divided" and the fourth, "Scatterbrained," which once again interweaves 18th century harmonies and gestures with idioms 20th century quartet writing, but here as a wacky, ironic scherzo. |
Scoring
for string quartet
Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes for the world.
for string quartet
Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes for the world.