Craig Walsh - String Quartet (2010)

Описание: Craig Walsh (*1971)
The Manhattan String Quartet performs Craig Walsh's Quartet at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, 2014.
-Curtis Macomber, violin
-Calvin Wiersma, violin
-John Dexter, viola
-Chris Finckel, 'cello

I. With Whirling Vigor (segue)
II. Freely
III. Molto Ritmico/Dancing

Notes: String Quartet (2010) was commissioned by the Manhattan String Quartet for the Sarajevo Chamber Music Festival, with support from the Jebediah Foundation and the U.S. Department of State. The Manhattan String Quartet gave the piece its first performance in May 2010 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and subsequent tour performances in Banja Luka, Mostar, New York, and London. The work incorporates various types of traditional music from the Balkan Peninsula. Quartet is in three movements, with the first two movements played without pause.

Movement I consists of long, melodic lines played against swirling scalar passages. The material moves through several developmental sections before it builds into a fierce, strident climax. This passage, lead by the cello, elides with the beginning of movement II.

Movement II is primarily inspired by ganga, a type of vocal music from rural Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a passionate type of ornamented singing that is used by sheepherders to communicate across long distances. The harmony in traditional ganga is very dissonant, consisting of intervals of the 2nd or smaller (i.e., major 2nd, minor 2nd, and smaller intervals such as quarter-tones). A single singer usually begins, with the others joining in, in what could be described as wailing and sighing.

The first half of movement II is highly contrasted with the second half, which is comparatively consonant and lyrical. Movement II ends quietly, with two long cadential sections that are meant to create anticipation for movement III, a short set of dances inspired by lively rhythmic techniques from the Balkan region. –CW



I own the rights to the musical composition and the recording (ASCAP).