Program Note
I wrote my String Quartet in 1998 and 1999, while living in Brookline, Massachusetts.
In seven movements, it pulled together a number of ideas I had been exploring. One movement
was an attempt to write an octet for four instruments; two were angry miniatures; two were
brutal perpetual motions. Another was a groove pizzicato in E minor, and the final featured
a shimmering chord. Most of the pitch-to-pitch motion resulted from arpeggios, and a harmonic
scaffolding underlaid everything – in order to have large-scale directed motion.
In 2005, I reconceived the quartet in one movement, reorganizing the movements and excising
the groove pizzicato, which now exists as a separate Quartetsatz.