Andrew Earle Simpson

String Quartet (1991)

Instrumentation	2 vn, va, vc
Duration	18:30'
Movements	3
Premiere	2/92, Boston University, Boston, MA
Performers	BU Student Quartet
Commissioned by	N/A
Recording	MusM recital, BU
Publication	Composer
Performance History	2/92, Boston University 4/92, Crosscurrents, Boston College, MA
mp3 sample	Movement I excerpt (Click to listen) Movement II excerpt (Click to listen) Movement III excerpt (Click to listen)

Program Notes

The String Quartet is a student composition, completed and premiered during my graduate studies at Boston University.  Although a student work, it shows already signs of a developing trend in my work: gradually-evolving and increasing consonance from beginning to end. 

Beginning with a tonally centric but more dissonant first movement (Slowly-Allegro), the quartet proceeds through a buoyant three-part scherzo to a final andante, which follows without pause.  The concluding slow movement is the most tonal and consonant of the three movements, and the work is considered to be a gradual progression from dissonance to consonance.  Indeed, motives from the second and third movements are quoted already within the first movement; thus, the seeds of the eventual tonal "resolution" of the first movement are contained within that opening movement. 

--Andrew Earle Simpson