Instrumentation:
ob, vln, vla, vc
Approximate duration:
11 minutes
Programme notes (© David Curington, 2011):
This piece focusses on melodic presentation and portrays a deeply classical influence
of structural balance and stylistic poise. Quarter-tones are used throughout, but melodic
fragments containing them are usually repeated with "correction", in accordance with their
sounding "out of tune" in a modal harmonic context.
The melodic presentation introduced at the start is a musical transplantation of an
optical illusion involving a horizontal bar appearing to change colour as the colour
of its surroundings are gradually changed. In a similar way, I aim to seemly give
the oboe the power to drastically vary its timbre; a power that string instruments possess.
The second movement connects the generating motifs of the first movement by
linear development, exploring possible directions in which the music could be taken. Structural
coherence is given by a global "pseudo-palindrome": the opening flourish is a highly compressed
form of its reflected image.
The last movement combines the ideas of the previous two.
The quartet was written for myself and the Eblana String Trio, with whom I have had
immense pleasure playing and gained invaluable experience both as player and composer.
Sample music:
Click here for a few
pages of the score as a pdf file, or play an excerpt below.