Karim Al-Zand

composer

date

1996

duration

15 minutes

instrumentation

2 violins, viola, cello

awards

Salvatore Martirano Award;
SOCAN Young Composers Award;
ASCAP/SCI Student Commission Competition (Regional Winner), National Honorable Mention;
Blodgett Competition;
Harvard University's Arthur Knight Award

movements

I. Marches
2. Aria and Double
3. Bacchanale

premiere

July 31, 1996
Wellesley Composers Conference:
Cyrus Stevens, Jennifer Elowitch, violins;
Louise Schulman, viola;
Michael Finckel, cello;

Wellesley MA

String Quartet

in three movements

about the piece:

The first movement, Marches, consists of three fleeting and somber marches. Each is inexorably quicker than the previous (save for a brief ethereal-sounding respite near the end) leading to the movement’s frantic final measures. In the second movement, Aria and Double, a slow melody in 6/4 is followed by its ‘double’—a type of variation where the melody is embellished but the harmonic underpinning remains the same (though it is rhythmically animated). The last movement is a fantasy-piece entitled Bacchanale which, as its title suggests, evokes dance, song and general revelry. The movement’s many themes are linked by a set of distinctive melodic ideas heard most prominently in the opening violin music, played vigorously in triple stops. The string writing is quite ‘athletic’ in this movement.