String Quartet
1965

Duration

10'

Publisher

Edition Peters

Program Notes

[The revised Peters Edition score of 2007 replaces all previous editions.]

STRING QUARTET is one of several works in which I have attempted to combine the “graphic” and “mobile” — improvisational qualities of the 1952 works (as in FOLIO), and the “composed material, open form” conditions of TWENTY FIVE PAGES (1953) and the AVAILABLE FORMS works of 1961-62. In composing these later works, which use more than one performer without conductor, I have fixed the over-all form but have left areas of flexibility within the inner structures. The works achieve a strong formal identity while maintaining the “performer process” spontaneity and the balance of collaboration between the composition and the performers that are characteristic of the previously mentioned open-form and graphic works.

More Information

Commissioned by Suedwestfunk Baden-Baden for the “Donauschinger Musiktage” Festival, Germany.

Audio Samples

String Quartet

Selected Performances

January 19, 2016 • Good Shepherd Center, Seattle, WA

Inverted Space Ensemble
 

December 9, 2015 • The Cell, New York City

Ensemble Mise-en

January 18, 2013 • Boston

Callithumpian Consort

October 27, 2012 • Paula Cooper Gallery

Flux Quartet

September 3, 2012 • St.Georgen, Germany, Kunstraum Graesslin

Ensemble: DÖNNEWEG-QUARTETT

July 8, 2012 • Barge Music, New York, NY

Ensemble: Flux Quartet

November 24, 2008 • London, Tate Modern

Ensemble: The Kreutzer String Quartett

April 17, 2007 • Chelsea Art Museum, New York City

Ensemble: Nextworks

March 11, 2002 • Kulturbraurei Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Ensemble: Kairos Quartet

October 16, 1965 • Donaueschingen

World Premiere
Lasalle String Quartet