- String Quartet No. 1 (1988) 25'
- Ehrendiplom, 1989 Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Competition, Dresden, Germany
- Premiere—1990, by the Eakins Quartet, Fort Washington, MD.
Program Note
My First Quartet was written during a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in January 1988, and completed the following spring. The opening movement—which could stand alone—expands in a slow-fast-slow design, and forms fully half of the entire work. Nearly all of the material comes from the opening viola statement: an abrupt descending fourth, a neighbor tone and an ascending half-step. A declamatory passage leads to a fugato with very American-sounding episodes. The fugato devolves through a dramatic climax, in which the viola is heard on its head, to a lulling passage which contrasts the cello's lower register with the harmonics of its higher teammates. The other movements include a bumptious scherzo with trilling trio and coda (in which the instruments speak in utterly dissimilar terms), a cantabile slow movement, and a virtuosic chaconne on an abstract harmonic progression, whereupon follows a swashbuckling return of the opening recitative for ensemble.
String Quartet was awarded an Ehrendiplom in the Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Competition for String Quartets in Dresden, Germany 1989. It was premiered by the Eakins Quartet, to whose members-Laura Park, Teri Lazar, Osman Kivrak, Robert Park-it is dedicated.
Editing this note in 2005, I must also acknowledge a debt to David Diamond; an often testy man, he nonetheless left his mark on this work with helpful comments and encouragement.