String quartet
SKU:
FG.55011-510-1
Composed by Matthew
Whittall. Score and
parts. Fennica Gehrman
#55011-510-1. Published
by Fennica Gehrman
(FG.55011-510-1).
ISBN
9790550115101.
Matt
hew Whittall's preface to
Bright Ferment (2019): I
have a complicated
history with the string
quartet. Actually, it's
not that complicated. I
spent months writing a
huge one in my early
twenties and hastily
withdrew it after a long
delayed premiere, vowing
never to write another.
In a typical case of
karmic retribution, my
fear of the form would
eventually be overcome by
the unrefusable offer to
write the compulsory
piece for the Banff
International String
Quartet Competition in my
native Canada. The short
duration requested, about
nine minutes, also felt
like a good way to wade
gingerly back into the
medium. The title was
originally just a
nice-sounding pair of
words that surfaced in a
brainstorming session
with fellow composer Alex
Freeman over an
injudicious amount of
fermented barley. When I
looked it up later, I
found that it was a
phrase of older coinage,
seemingly used more for
poetic resonance than any
fixed meaning. Ferment by
itself denotes a state of
confusion, change or lack
of order. With bright, it
takes on a more positive
connotation with regard
to society and
creativity: a wild
profusion of ideas barely
checked by reason. (It
may not actually mean
that, but it describes
this piece nicely, so
let's go with it.)
Fermentation in its
trendy culinary usage is
also hinted at via a
recurrent percolating
device of scattered
pizzicati. As one may
guess from the tone of
this introduction, there
is little attempt at
gravity in Bright
Ferment, the only means
by which I felt I could
sidestep the historical
and expressive weight of
the string quartet genre.
Styles, gestures and
moods are tossed around,
cross-cut and abandoned
in
stream-of-consciousness
fashion, connected by
little except an
intuitive sense of
rightness in their
juxtaposition. If the
piece acquires depth in
spite of me, it will only
be because its disparate
parts amplify and
strengthen each other
simply by being together
- much like the ensemble
itself. Bright Ferment
was commissioned by the
Banff Centre for the Arts
and Creativity and the
Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation, with
additional funding from
the Americas Society (New
York), for the 2019 Banff
International String
Quartet Competition.
Duration: ca. 9
minutes.
The Little Rain
