Hugo Wolf: String Quartet D minor: String Quartet

Par BARGIELSKI ZBIGNIEW . After the first performance of my Fourth Quartet, in Salzburg in 1997, the artists of the excellent Hugo Wolf Quartett approached me with the appealing proposition that I write a new quartet. Rather problematic, however, proved to be the musicians’ delicate suggestion that I invest the work with elements of a more pungent expression and elements of folklore – ideally Polish. That suggestion meant that I did not immediately come to a decision, since folklore had not been (with the exception of a few works for accordion) the object of my interest. However, in defiance of my aesthetic outlook at that time, I decided to take up this interesting invitation and tackle what was for me a difficult problem. Ultimately, I found a way out of this rather ambiguous situation by employing a sort of dodge: I gave the new work a title. In a way, ‘The time that has passed’ substantiates the current to which I referred while writing this composition. The title and the subtitles of the work’s movements, which sound quite exotic in our day and age (there are as many as nine movements), justify the curious marriage between the somewhat nostalgic past and a present that has not yet been particularly well ‘assimilated’. I hope that these feuilles d’album will discharge their ‘toning’ function well. - Zbigniew Bargielski/ Répertoire / Quatuor à Cordes