Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Robert Saxton
Songs, Dances and Ellipses (1997)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Commissioned by the Barbican Centre
Programme Note
The title Songs, Dances and Ellipses refers both to the character and the architecture of my quartet. The fundamental nature of the relationship between the extra-human music of the spheres and human musical expression, manifest in song and dance, lies behind much of my music; in the case of Songs, Dances and Ellipses I was absorbed by the idea of the most humanly intimate medium - the string quartet - set in the context of the all-embracing, and very real, elliptical orbits of the planets. The music consists of five linked movements which form three larger sections. Movements one and two form the first part, the central slow movement is the second part, and movements four and five form the third, and final section.
The first movement presents polyphony of a singing character, the overall shape of the argument outlining three increasingly large ellipses, the last of which leads to the more active, and quicker, second movement. This begins with quiet, rapid tremolando playing and, as it progresses, the music becomes more dance-like but with the singing, legato character never far beneath the surface; the whole movement outlines an ellipse and subsides into the third movement. The latter begins with the same harmony as that which initiated the second movement - the music has journeyed round an elliptical path and now re-traces this as a sustained, slow movement of intense ‘inner’-expression and singing character. This resolves into the fourth movement which starts with the A/C minor third with which the quartet began. The music gradually transforms into a true dance, presenting ‘outward’ expression now, and acting as a prelude to the fifth movement, a fast, dancing span of music of increasing energy which culminates in the ‘resolution’ of the original minor third - A/C - onto the major third - D/F# - but with a de-stabilising tritone present. There cannot, I feel, be a truly conclusive resolution to this quartet - the entire process is concerned with perpetual motion and increasing energy, as well as with cyclical paths. Just as the velocity of a planet increases at the focus of its ellipse which is nearest to the sun, so the music of the quartet reaches its true pitch centre and its maximum speed at the focus of its last elliptical orbit.
Songs, Dances and Ellipses was commissioned by the Barbican Centre for the Chilingirian String Quartet on the occasion of their 25th anniversary.
The first movement presents polyphony of a singing character, the overall shape of the argument outlining three increasingly large ellipses, the last of which leads to the more active, and quicker, second movement. This begins with quiet, rapid tremolando playing and, as it progresses, the music becomes more dance-like but with the singing, legato character never far beneath the surface; the whole movement outlines an ellipse and subsides into the third movement. The latter begins with the same harmony as that which initiated the second movement - the music has journeyed round an elliptical path and now re-traces this as a sustained, slow movement of intense ‘inner’-expression and singing character. This resolves into the fourth movement which starts with the A/C minor third with which the quartet began. The music gradually transforms into a true dance, presenting ‘outward’ expression now, and acting as a prelude to the fifth movement, a fast, dancing span of music of increasing energy which culminates in the ‘resolution’ of the original minor third - A/C - onto the major third - D/F# - but with a de-stabilising tritone present. There cannot, I feel, be a truly conclusive resolution to this quartet - the entire process is concerned with perpetual motion and increasing energy, as well as with cyclical paths. Just as the velocity of a planet increases at the focus of its ellipse which is nearest to the sun, so the music of the quartet reaches its true pitch centre and its maximum speed at the focus of its last elliptical orbit.
Songs, Dances and Ellipses was commissioned by the Barbican Centre for the Chilingirian String Quartet on the occasion of their 25th anniversary.
Media
Songs, Dances and Ellipses (movt I)
Songs, Dances and Ellipses (movt II)
Songs, Dances and Ellipses (movt III)