String Quartet – The Figure (weekend premiere)
Posted by JLZ in Concerts, Judith Lang ZaimontComing up this weekend is the premiere of my new String Quartet – The Figure, performed by the excellent Harlem Quartet. ( 9/ 15 – Syracuse University,  9/16– Eastman , 9/17 – Cornell)Â
The 16-minute Quartet was composed in January and February, during which time I felt almost as if I was working in a trance: the materials grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.   It is traditional in no way – not in its forms, nor its sounds nor its character.  It’s cast in 2 movements, but only as I was about half-way through the second did the a title suggest itself.  (Playing on the fact that the term “figure†is meaningful in visual arts and literature, as well as in music.)
Everything in the Quartet derives from the materials of its tripartite figure.  And since these are revealed differently in the two movements – obscured in the first; in the second initially outlined harshly, but then interrupted increasingly by a softened, melodic version of itself –  I titled each movement accordingly:  1 - In Shadow ,   2 – In Bright Light.
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Overall the Quartet is dramatic in its character, but woven in its form. It changes on a dime from inward to outward musics, from romantic sweep to angular exclamation –  at one point (at the height of Shadow’s central sprint), I ask the players to stamp their feet, several times,  for unison emphasis – and the movements interrelate .   Example: There’s a shard which appears only once in the first movement that in the second becomes seriously meaningful.
The Harlem Quartet is very interested in the piece, and we’ve already had some spirited rehearsals (by electronic means); we meet in person at Syracuse on Friday.
[Five other of my works will also be done at Syracuse across the two Saturday concerts. ]
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