Ludi
Armando Bayolo
About this work:
ludus -i m. [play , game, sport, pastime]; plur., ludi, [public games or spectacles]. Transf., [a trifle, jest, joke]; 'ludum dare', [to give free play to]; [a training establishment, school].
Ludi is a work for two string quartets written for the Degas and Euclid Quartets and commissioned by the Aspen Music Festival. It takes the idea of games, gamesmanship and especially public games or spectacles and seeks to provide musical variations on said ideas. The quartets, therefore, are set in apparently antagonistic positions across the stage from each other and often separated by scrims. Out of this arrangement various games arise: games of perception (sounds seem to come from various sides of the stage producing a composite), games of relationships (the quartets are set up antagonistically against one and another at times while at others they engage in more playful, seemingly erotic discourse), musical games in the use of contrapuntal devices, depictions of societal games (such as the controlled violence of the rock concert mosh pit and the gamesmanship of romantic courtship as contemporary mating rituals) and, literally, games of chance (in the cadenzas to "end games," the organization of which is left up to the performers and/or the audience). Finally, these games are taken as a metaphor for human relationships, some healthier than others, and the final "Benediction: All Men Are Brothers" is a game only in the sense that the hope for good, just human interaction is a game.
Year composed: 2005
Duration: 00:30:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Other Combinations, 6-9 players
Instrumentation: ,4 Violin soloist(s), ,2 Viola soloist(s), ,2 Cello soloist(s)
Instrumentation notes: The ensemble should be divided into two string quartets and positioned stage left and right respectively. The quartet on stage left (audience right), or "Quartet II," has the option of performing behind a scrim during the second movement. Lighting effects, specified in the score (but not limited to these), are optional.