String Quartet No. 2 "Bluegrass"
Mark O'Connor
About this work:
As I continue to develop other artistic interpretations of vernacular and idiomatic music of my own past, I uncover new pathways in discovering how much this music from my childhood means to me in the present tense. With my String Quartet No 2, I bring to bare one of my favorite music styles I learned as an 11 and 12 year old, Bluegrass.
Bluegrass music is the vocabulary I use in the quartet and it instructs the musical language of the string quartet art form. Although in this case I admit that just like my own classical string writing is unique, such is the case with my early bluegrass playing. In other words this is not a classical interpretation of roots music, rather it is a modern interpretation of modern interpreted bluegrass music. Or put in a different way, it is my own version of my own version! The approach results in a doubling up of the musical uniqueness of my Quartet's conceptual endeavor, and ends up providing the listener with a new musical idea.
The process in which I used to compose the Quartet is a bit of a departure, even from my usual methods. I got the idea for this compositional process from the piano trio I had written just prior to it, Poets And Prophets. In that trio I utilized Johnny Cash vocal phrases and rhythmic hooks from his early group the Tennessee Two to thematically inspire the music and developmentally produce the content. Here with my Quartet, I kept that approach but now I simply wanted to use my own licks! But this is where the process became even more unusual. I hardly played any bluegrass in the last twenty years. But these Bluegrass themes, rhythms and tunes I use in the Quartet are new. I mean new to me as well! This all may be a little like riding the bicycle and never forgetting how, but with an additional twist. Even though I had not pursued bluegrass music, somewhere in the back of my mind I was still developing a repertoire of the hottest bluegrass licks and the most soulful bluegrass harmony I could muster up. I just hadn't realized it. That was until I was ready to write this "classical" string quartet.
From the bouncy bluegrass vocal like melodies, to the blistering fast hot licks, to the rhythmic bow "chopping" to the gospel yearnings of the slow movement, I wanted to comprehensively dive down deep in to the strains of this music. I wanted to further discover what this American musical art form means to string playing, what it means to this quartet, and ultimately what my own past means to me today.
Mark O'Connor – 4/8/05
Year composed: 2005
Duration: 00:36:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:String Quartet
Instrumentation: 2 Violin, 1 Viola, 1 Cello