date

2002

duration

11 minutes

instrumentation

2 violins, viola, cello

awards

Tampa Bay Composers’ Forum Excellence in Chamber Music
2nd Prize

movements

I. Slowly; rustling [Sordina]
2. Moderately; shimmering [Arpeggione]
3. Slowly; delicate [Armonica]
4. Quickly; humorous [Guitarra]

premiere

April 28, 2002
Flux Quartet:
Tom Chiu & Jesse Mills, violins;
Max Mandel, viola;
Darrett Adkins, cello

Rothko Chapel
Houston TX

String Quartet No. 2 ’Etudes’

for 2 violins, viola & cello

about the piece:

The piece has the subtitle ‘Etudes’ since each movement forms a study of a single string technique. The movements’ descriptive titles have double meanings: they refer to both the technique being used and to an instrument which the ensemble as a whole evokes.

Sourdine is an 18th century Italian ‘pocket’ violin. The body of the instrument was smaller than the regular violin and it had a relatively soft sound the word sordo literally means ‘mute’ in Italian. Sordino, as a musical indication, refers to a device which dampens the sound of an instrument, a mute. In the first movement the quartet uses mutes throughout, both the common orchestral type and a softer ‘practice’ variety.

Arpeggione is the name of an early 19th century instrument (pictured left) which was a hybrid of guitar and cello: it had six strings and frets but was played with a bow. The instrument was short-lived, perhaps because it was quite difficult to play and had a relatively small dynamic range. The only well-known piece written for this instrument is a Sonata by Schubert—the so-called ‘Arpeggione’ Sonata—which is now usually performed on cello. One strength of the arpeggione, and the source of its name, was its facility with chord-like passages played in a ‘broken’ fashion, rapidly articulated. The second movement focuses on this string-crossing arpeggio technique.

Armonica was the name given by Benjamin Franklin to one of his musical inventions: a mechanized version of the glass harmonica. The glass harmonica is an instrumental form of the wine-glass trick. A thin, delicate pitch can be produced by rubbing the rims of graduated glass bowls in a circular motion. The third movement uses the distinctive sound of string harmonics to create a soft, glassy texture.

Of the four instruments, Guitarra is the only one still in common use. This last movement uses plucked strings (pizzicato) to evoke the sound of the guitar.

Karim Al-Zand

composer