String Quartet #2
Eric Sawyer
About this work:
String Quartet #2 was written during my first
months as a parent. My ongoing interest in
the interdependence of structure and feeling
in music found an analogue in watching a
developing life with its own mysterious link
between internal process and emerging
personality. The compositional technique
does not mimic any actual biological
process, but the slow mutation of strands
of melody at the opening of the first
movement might represent life’s
beginnings, with an unpredictable
evolution. The third movement gives a
more robust rhythmic personality to some
of the same material. The intervening slow
movement is contemplative and set in the
Lydian mode (a major scale with a raised
fourth), or actually two Lydian scales an
augmented fourth apart, combining to give
all of the notes on the piano.
Year composed: 1999
Duration: 02:30:80
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:String Quartet
Instrumentation: 2 Violin, 1 Viola, 1 Cello
Instrumentation notes: string quartet