Adagios for String Quartet (2009/10)

-Four Adagios and a Coda-

16' duration

Premiered: April 17, 2010, by the JACK Quartet in Carlsbad, California

This work is also arranged for String Quintet and String Orchestra:

Adagios for String Quintet (2010)

-Four Adagios and a Coda -

(2 violins, viola, cello, doublebass)

Premiered on May 16, 2010 by the Toomai Quintet in New Jersey.

Commissioned by the Harry and Alice Eiler Foundation.

Program Notes:

When receiving this Adagio commission, one of my interests was to write a contemporary work that could be programmed alongside both classical and contemporary music alike.  "Adagio" is an umbrella term that includes many musical genres, such as Elegy, In Memorial, March Funere, Pavane, Meditation, Nocturne, and Dance as well as well-known symphonic movements.   In researching many such works, I found one common quality: these pieces “at rest” use the formal clarity of a single movement to achieve a heightened sense of expressivity from limited means.

To respect the larger scope of the commission, I wrote two full scale adagios, two slightly shorter adagios (as if the same story is told from two completely different points of view) and a coda. The first movement, "Elegy (to the memory of my father)," begins with perfect crescendo cutoff's being passed back and forth between the instruments (with touches of tonal harmonies and non-melodic characteristics reminiscent of my father's musical influence).  The second movement is a "Suspended Adagio," where musical development is replaced by intensification, and “at rest” is replaced by complete stillness (yet still out of breath by the end!).   The third movement, "Solo," features the viola spinning out a never ending melody to heroic proportions.  And the fourth movement returns to the Suspended Adagio, but this time with complete peace and leading into a ghost-like coda. 

There is also a meta-narrative in these three adagios, albeit a non-linear one: the soul of the individual descending and confronting death (Movement III - Solo), facing the moment of truth (Movement II - Suspended Adagio), being reflected upon by others (Movement I - Elegy), and disappearing back into the aether (Movement IV - Slow Adagio - Transcendent Coda).