A Dag Issimo
1
Peters Edition Limited Hinrichsen House 10-12 Baches Street London N1 6DN Tel: 020 7553 4030 Fax: 020 7490 4921 e-mail: [email protected] internet: www.editionpeters.com Brian Ferneyhough Adagissimo (1983) String Quartet Duration: 1 minute 45 seconds First performance: 28 June 1984, La Rochelle Festival, Arditti String Quartet Composed in November 1983 as an eightieth birthday tribute to Sir Michael Tippett, this brief movement employs an array of prolational canonic techniques applied to the rhythmic structure of a five-measure passage for four horns extracted from my orchestral work La Terre est un Homme. The discourse is divided into two concurrent processual strata clearly distinguished by timbral and textual characteristics, the one - abrupt and mercurial - played by the muted violins, the other - far more melodically fluid and cantabile in nature - being presented by the viola and cello, which share frequent pitches in common. While the abrupt gestures of the violins are expressed in intervals based on a rigidly invariant octave disposition of tempered quarter-tones, that of the lower instruments demands continuous attention to subtle, contextually-based inflection and nuance similar to that encountered in the interpretation of Indian ragas.
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Ferneyhoughs' programme note for the piece
Transcript of A Dag Issimo
PetersEditionLimitedHinrichsen House10-12 Baches StreetLondonN1 6DNTel: 020 7553 4030Fax: 020 7490 4921e-mail: [email protected]: www.editionpeters.comBrian FerneyhoughAdagissimo(1983)String QuartetDuration: 1 minute 45 secondsFirst performance: 28 June 1984, La Rochelle Festival, Arditti String QuartetComposed in November 1983 as an eightieth birthday tribute to Sir Michael Tippett, this brief movementemploys an array of prolational canonic techniques applied to the rhythmic structure of a five-measurepassage for four horns extracted from my orchestral work La Terre est un Homme. The discourse isdivided into two concurrent processual strata clearly distinguished by timbral and textual characteristics,the one - abrupt and mercurial - played by the muted violins, the other - far more melodically fluid andcantabile in nature - being presented by the viola and cello, which share frequent pitches in common.While the abrupt gestures of the violins are expressed in intervals based on a rigidly invariant octavedisposition of tempered quarter-tones, that of the lower instruments demands continuous attention tosubtle, contextually-based inflection and nuance similar to that encountered in the interpretation ofIndian ragas.
