String quartet
SKU:
HL.49045639
Chaconne. Composed
by Fred Lerdahl. This
edition: Saddle
stitching. Sheet music.
String Ensemble.
Softcover. Composed 2016.
108 pages. Duration 990
seconds. Schott Music #ED
30174. Published by
Schott Music
(HL.49045639).
ISBN
9781540004796. UPC:
888680710774.
9.5x12.0x0.37
inches.
Chaconne
(2016), for string
quartet, was commissioned
by the Daedalus Quartet
to celebrate its 15th
anniversary. The
commission was supported
by New Music USA, made
possible by annual
program support and/or
endowment gifts from
Pennsylvania Council on
the Arts, Helen F.
Whitaker Fund, and Aaron
Copland Fund for Music.My
music has a substantial
history with Daedalus. I
composed the Third String
Quartet (2008) for them,
and subsequently they
performed my three string
quartets on several
occasions and recorded
them brilliantly on
Bridge Records (Bridge
9352: Music of Fred
Lerdahl, vol. 3).
Chaconne is in one
movement lasting 19
minutes. It is
effectively my fourth
string quartet. Quartets
1-3 form a unified cycle
lasting 70 minutes. When
I finished the cycle, I
thought I would never
write again for the
medium; yet I could not
resist the opportunity of
working again with
Daedalus. The issue was
how to compose another
string quartet unrelated
to the earlier cycle. The
solution came from my
solo cello piece There
and Back Again (2010),
which was based on a
four-bar variation
pattern from a
17th-century chaconne.
Unlike the asymmetrical
phrases and expanding
variations of much of my
music, the chaconne form
requires symmetrical
phrases and strictly
periodic variations. I
wished to work again with
these symmetries but on a
larger scale. Chaconne
also differs in character
and expression from the
three-quartet cycle. The
cycle is inward and
intense, a kind of
psychological excavation.
Chaconne is, for the most
part, transparent and
playful. Many of its
textures emerge from
little canons, not
completely unlike the
rounds that children
sing. Any composer who
writes in chaconne form
(one thinks above all of
the last movement of
Bach's D minor violin
partita and the finale of
Brahms's Fourth Symphony)
is confronted with the
challenge of how to
create a larger form out
of a constantly repeating
pattern.My Chaconne grows
from paired
antecedent-consequent
phrases, each variation
lasting eight bars. The
50 variations group into
three large rotations,
forming three arcs of
tension and relaxation,
with subtle parallel
connections across the
rotations.
Notwithstanding my
attraction to chaconne
form, I purposefully
disguised its symmetries
and periodicities in
order to build an overall
dramatic shape. Fred
Lerdahl.
