Nightclub for String Quartet (2017)
-
Instrumentation: String quartet
-
Description: For a while before writing this quartet that I had wanted it to be more similar to Ravel’s “Blues” Violin Sonata, not like his actual Quartet, which I had already sort of emulated in 2015. Eventually, through some failed sketching, I came across a BBC documentary about swing music and its predominantly black culture, and I thought it would be fun to write my own jazz swing piece and celebrate that. Thus, the cello part plays the role of the string bass most of the time, and the whole piece is played with a bit of a swing. The piece doesn’t really follow an exact form like my other 2015 Quartet, as it takes a jazzy melody (with its flat 7) and spins it through the quartet as the piece goes on. At one part the first violin plays a very loose melody, representing freedom in time and having a fun time listening to jazz music on a Friday night in the city. I'd like to thank the Del Sol Quartet for reading this so well in the score-video below, and my good friend Kellen Myers from Myers Productions for recording it.