# String Quartet work



## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

I wrote this at the start of the year. It's now been submitted to a number of "call for scores". Time will tell if an ensemble will elect to read or perform it.

This is actually a tone poem. In fact, the poem's storyline created the structure of the composition. For a variety of reasons I will not be sharing the poem with you. I'll be curious to see if the piece's structure makes sense as absolute music.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ujxjkw3i0tb93n2/String Quartet piece.mp3?dl=0


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## E Cristobal Poveda (Jul 12, 2017)

What an overwhelming sense of dread this is.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

I like this. Obviously the emotions would be more clear with real instruments, but it sounds very mournful and lonely, with intensity that seems to grow and shift as the piece goes on. If I'm hearing it correctly, it sounds like it starts with one instrument and slowly expands to the full quartet, which I really like.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I haven't heard many of your works before, but this one is more tonal than the other ones I recall.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Let me respond to all three repliers in this one post

First, if I am recalling correctly Poveda, you've said here at TC that you can't stand anything beyond Stravinsky's "Firebird" If so, then your response is not unexpected.

Fred, thanks for the liking. The poem does begin with a person alone with their thoughts so naturally I start off with just a viola. The intensification that takes place later refers to the person witnessing an awesome display of raw power.

Phil, there's a spot in the middle where the poem briefly deals with love, so I responded by writing a more tonal section although it does slide around and disintegrates as the love thoughts do in the poem.


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## E Cristobal Poveda (Jul 12, 2017)

Vasks said:


> Let me respond to all three repliers in this one post
> 
> First, if I am recalling correctly Poveda, you've said here at TC that you can't stand anything beyond Stravinsky's "Firebird" If so, then your response is not unexpected.
> 
> ...


I mean, it would do brilliant as a horroresque type piece, it evokes a certain visceral sense of dread in me.


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## MarkMcD (Mar 31, 2014)

Hi Vasks,

This is a very intense work. I'm always intrigued by the processes you and composers like you go through and the techniques you employ to achieve your goals. It's a very confident piece and it hangs together very well. I especially like the tone bending and the col-legno which are used to great effect.

I can appreciate the artistry in putting together something like this, it's not easy to master so much dissonance in a way that still captures the audience and doesn't leave them feeling like it was just a bunch of randomness. There's a feeling of real intent and journeying toward a destination. The comical touch around 5.32 adds another dimension I liked also.

As you know, technically I can't tell you anything, but I liked it.

Regards
Mark


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## Guest (Jul 4, 2018)

Me likey.

It sounds very very neo-romantic, rhythmically constraint and with a nice sense of pacing, paced very much like a film score actually. There's a lot of comfort and regularity in this music for me, not sure about the 'dread' yet at three and a half minutes in, except in the violin glissandi right before the very humorous pizzicati. 

Do I hear a bit of influence from Mosolov? Roslavets? There's something of that early 20th century Russian style in this which I find quite appealing.

I'm curious to know your thoughts on neo-Romantic composers such as Wolfgang Rihm who takes a lot of inspiration from the late Romantic aesthetic as you have done here.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Again, I'll respond to the last 3 replies in order:

Got it, Poveda. I guess it would have been better if you had initially said something like "the piece conveys a sense of dread". But if I was correct in my statement about your limit on "modernism" keep trying to listen to what the consensus says are 20th century masterpieces with repeated listenings. You're young; force yourself to soak 'em in.

Thank you Mark. NotePerformer allows some special techniques to be heard. I actually had a problem with the col legno cello that refused to go back to "arco" even though I did write it in. I had to actually create another cello staff that did just the col legno spot.

I guess shirime that because I compose with melodic and motivic ideas at the forefront, it forces my pieces to connect to the past. There's no intention on my part to be "Russian" but once in a while a passage in certain pieces (not this one for me) does sound Shostakovich-like. I only have two pieces by Rihm (*Time Chant*..which I can't recall being obviously Neo-Romantic & *Jagden und Formen*...a huge piece which I have not heard in a long time and can't recall much else.


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## Guest (Jul 4, 2018)

Hmmm I thought Time Chant was one of his more neo-Romantic works, particularly the highly melodic, gestural/motific and anti-experimental nature of his music.


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