• Sofia Gubaidulina
  • String Quartet No. 4 (1993)

  • Hans Sikorski Russian Works (USA and Canada only)

Available in the USA and Canada only

  • 2 vn, va, vc
  • 12 min

Programme Note

The four players comprise three 'quartets': two recorded for later playback combined with the live quartet in performance.

Composer note
What interested me especially in this piece was how the "real" arises from the "unreal": (1) The normal play of arco or pizzicato from the transparent sounds achieved by the playing of a plastic ball on the strings, (2) the "real" playing of the quartet physically present on stage from the "unreal" play of the same performers on pre-recorded tape, and (3) the real essence of the light part from the unreal (creatively speaking) white and black light. (Black and white, after all, represent the absence of light. Color loses its reality within them.)

Three trinities resulted: (1) the sound of the quartet and its two recorded hypostases, (2) the real form and its two recorded satellites, and (3) the creative reality of the play of light and its two ordinary (i.e., unreal) protagonists: complete light and complete darkness.

Is this a quartet? Or is some other title more appropriate here? However that may be, all of the details of the piece - both of its material essence and its compositional design - are derived from the basic idea: the birth of the "real genuine" from "unreal artificial" (and on no account the reverse). This was expressed best of all in the Four Quartets of T.S. Eliot. If my composition were to be heard and perceived as a musical reaction to the creative world of this great poet, I would be content.

— Sofia Gubaidulina

Media

Quatuor Molinari

Discography

Title Unavailable
  • Label
    ATMA Classique
  • Ensemble
    Quatuor Molinari
  • Released
    13th January 2015

25 Years: Retrospective

25 Years: Retrospective
  • Label
    Nonesuch
  • Ensemble
    Kronos Quartet
  • Released
    27th October 1998

Complete String Quartets

Complete String Quartets
  • Label
    Supraphon
  • Catalogue Number
    4078-2
  • Ensemble
    Stamic Quartet
Title Unavailable
  • Label
    Nonesuch
  • Catalogue Number
    79504
  • Ensemble
    Kronos Quartet
Title Unavailable
  • Label
    Nonesuch
  • Catalogue Number
    79346
  • Ensemble
    Kronos Quartet