String Quartet in Five Movements 2013

Program Note by Samuel Adams

About two months prior to starting work on this quartet, I read a series of lectures by the Italian author Italo Calvino on the topic of lightness in poetry. An idea of his that stuck—and one that was very important for me to understand at the time—is that art need not indulge in the weight of the world to be serious. Rather, art can deflect its weight without necessarily evading its presence. Calvino wrote: “The only hero able to cut off Medusa’s head is Perseus, who flies with winged sandals; Perseus, who does not turn his gaze upon the face of the Gorgon but only upon her image reflected in his bronze shield... Whenever humanity seems condemned to heaviness, I think I should fly like Perseus into a different space. I don’t mean escaping into dreams or into the irrational. I mean that I have to change my approach, look at the world from a different perspective” (Calvino, from “Six Memos for the Next Millennium”).

I found this image striking and meaningful—timely, too, since it provided an approach to writing my first string quartet (a daunting task!). It also seemed appropriate given the character of St. Lawrence: a very serious group of musicians who do not take themselves too seriously.

So, this string quartet is a kind of thought experiment, one that takes inspiration from Calvino’s stance. And although it references its historical predecessors (Joseph Haydn, John Cage, Helmut Lachenmann) through allusion and quotation, it does so as Perseus might have: with winged feet. The five movements function independently, and only occasionally to they directly refer to one another.

The first movement, fluid is constructed of a series of winding melodies and out-of-context cadences. The music is gentle and to be played without vibrato or heavy bow pressure.

The second and most substantial movement is a pastorale that moves at varying degrees of slowness: first slow, then slower, then so slow that the music almost seems to fray at the edges. A stratospheric minuet, rewritten in 5/8 for the two violins, surfaces about a third of the way through.

An intermezzo lasting only two minutes, the third movement takes its material from Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 20, No. 5, which is only openly revealed in its last gesture.

The fourth movement is very fast and slightly irreverent, built of quickly alternating harmonics that transform asthe players gradually move towards (and away from) the bridges of their instruments. The last gesture we hear is the quiet, distant sound of white noise.

The fifth and final movement is a fractured, distorted hymn that has no source and departs not via cadence but via disintegration.

String Quartet in Five Movements is dedicated to the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

- Samuel Adams

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