SKU: HL.14014073
UPC: 884088808891. 8.5x11.0x0.108 inches.
'Verse 1' marks the beginning of a more ambitious and intense style of composition. The ideas are relatively simple and develop gradually in a cyclic fashion within a one movement, sectional design. Progressively faster tempi lead to the main climax of the work near the end of the piece. Then a short coda leads to a very quiet ending and a return to the original tonal centre of C. Quoting composer:'In April 1975 I occupied a flat in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, near the seafront. As a member of the English Chamber Orchestra, I had come to work for a week on a recording of Britten's opera 'Death in Venice', so the real and suggested sound of the sea was in my ears, so to speak, for days on end. A few weeks later, when I started work on 'Verse 1', it became clear in the first few bars that I was recalling and suggesting the sea and the beach at Aldeburgh. I am not aware of any direct influence from Britten's music, but I do, however, quote a small fragment from a theme to be found in a piano quartet by Mahler, played early in the piece by the flute (bars 6 & 7). This work was awarded the First Prize in the Viotti International Competition for composers, in Italy in 1975.
SKU: PR.14440505S
UPC: 680160594603.
The most straightforward and shortest of any of my string quartets to date, the sixth employs only two thematic gestures which are used, perhaps obsessively, throughout: (a) brief melodic lines formed principally of sevenths, and (b) an ascending scale. The formal design is born out of the continual combining, interweaving and juxtaposition of these two elements, which collect themselves into two movements played without pause: the first predominantly slow and pensive, the second rhythmic and driving. Quartet No. 6 is approximately 16 minutes in duration. The score was commissioned by the Los Angeles-based Calder Quartet, four extremely talented young musicians with whom I performed at the Aspen, Colorado, Music Festival, and is dedicated to my wife, Elizabeth on the occasion of our fifty years together. The first movement is written in memory of my father-in-law Howard Deischer (1907 - 2005), who died during the course of composing. The work was completed in April of 2005 in Ormond-by-the-Sea, Florida. -- Sydney Hodkinson.The most straightforward and shortest of any of my string quartets to date, the sixth employs only two thematic gestures which are used, perhaps obsessively, throughout: (a) brief melodic lines formed principally of sevenths, and (b) an ascending scale. The formal design is born out of the continual combining, interweaving and juxtaposition of these two elements, which collect themselves into two movements played without pause: the first predominantly slow and pensive, the second rhythmic and driving.Quartet No. 6 is approximately 16 minutes in duration. The score was commissioned by the Los Angeles-based Calder Quartet, four extremely talented young musicians with whom I performed at the Aspen, Colorado, Music Festival, and is dedicated to my wife, Elizabeth on the occasion of our fifty years together. The first movement is written in memory of my father-in-law Howard Deischer (1907 – 2005), who died during the course of composing. The work was completed in April of 2005 in Ormond-by-the-Sea, Florida.— Sydney Hodkinson.