After Bartok , Ligeti and Lutoslawski how can I write something hot and strange ?
On May 1. 2019 I will be SEVENTY FIVE . My new quartet aims for tension, unity. How ?
Easy.
Difficult.
Everything must flow from
the opening bar of Mov. 1. , ” Allegro irascibile ma nobile ” .
Bar One’s motiv yells for an electric tautness from each instrument. Each uses the same “Corcoran notes” ( G . A flat . C sharp and D ) .
– My Leitmotiv provides the building-blocks for my entire first movement ;
each phrase. each ainstrumental colour and tonal region,all my derived motivs ,
these musical protests or denials, they must all come out of that Bar One ?
Yes, my architectural ideal here is that of the great string quartets , Stravinsky’s Three Pieces , Webern , Schoenberg and Alban Berg
….Late Beethoven.
Movement Two is a play of those naughty pizzicati quintuplets versus arco chords, a celebration of these melodies which I weave out of ( my ?) Frank Corcoran 7 -Note Sca
Movement Three is marked “Allegro Barbaro ” and ” feroce e ruvidissimo ” .
The throbbing dyads shift and interlock , descend or ascend,- they saw the torture.
High voltage. Kinetic art. Take your pick. Guantanamo or Gethsemane .