seeking all that's still unsung
We are dedicating this concert program to nature and our place in it, providing both a humanistic and musical lens on a time of environmental and sociological crisis.
Peter Sculthorpe String Quartet no. 18
John Luther Adams The Wind in High Places (2011)
Pēteris Vasks String Quartet no. 2, “Songs of Summer” (1984)
Program 1 - notes
Peter Sculthorpe: “My String Quartet No. 18 is a heartfelt expression of my concern about climate change, about the future of our fragile planet. Rather than attempt to write a work that addresses the plight of the planet itself, I chose to use Australia as a metaphor for it. The work is in five movements: ‘Prelude’; ‘A Land Singing’; ‘A Dying Land’; A Lost Land’; and ‘Postlude’.
John Luther Adams: Gordon Wright was the friend of a lifetime. For 30 years, Gordon and I shared our two greatest passions: music and Alaska. Gordon was my musical collaborator, my next-door neighbor, my fellow environmentalist and my camping buddy. The Wind in High Places is a triptych evoking special moments and places in our friendship. Over the years, I’ve utilized string quartet in several large ensemble works. But, at the age of 59, I finally composed my first string quartet.
I’ve long been enamored with the ethereal tones of Aeolian harps — instruments that draw their music directly from the wind. The Wind in High Places treats the string quartet as a large, 16-stringed harp. All the sounds in the piece are produced as natural harmonics or on open strings. Over the course of almost 20 minutes, the fingers of the musicians never touch the fingerboards of the instruments. If I could’ve found a way to make this music without them touching the instruments at all, I would have.
Peteris Vasks: As a child, Peteris Vasks began to study the violin. He recalls as his happiest, the times he was able to play in a string quartet. Later Vasks performed as a double-bass player with various Latvian and Lithuanian symphony and chamber orchestras. He says it was clear soon enough that the sound of string instruments was for him the most perfect: “Apart from everything else, I was fascinated by cantilena – the feeling of an immense and never-ending chant. It is in the sound of string instruments that my message sounds best – I am able there to sing out in the best way.”
Vasks’s pantheistic love of nature is mirrored in his String Quartet No. 2, “Songs of Summer”: “I experience God and pray to him in the forest, on the seashore, everywhere, because the world as God created it is so beautiful.” The first movement, “Coming into Bloom” is introduced in a subdued and flowing manner until the music settles. The second movement, “Birds” – with its free imitations of birdsongs – ranks among the most elaborate of Vasks’s compositions. The third movement, “Elegy”, ushers in autumnal resignation.
