Matthew Rowan - Composer

String Quartet No.1 is now available on
Newcastle New Music CD from:

Mr McFall’s Chamber

Although extreme variations of a single theme constitute the three movements of String Quartet No.1, each movement is shaped by an independent idea: the first movement is structured on a scene from a film; the second movement displays a contrast between abstract and concrete material; and the idea of multiple changes in rhythm of the third movement originated from a graphic print. A scene from Yimou Zhang’s film Hero, where a protagonist is killed by his lover, suggested the decreasing instrumentation of the first movement – as each cycle of the theme begins there is one less instrument involved to play the theme, and instead the departed instruments contribute to the atmospheric texture that coexists with the theme. The second movement has two musical strands, one that is abstract, and one that is concrete: the main strand – abstract – is a series of pitches (from the theme) moving in linear motion on each instrument but at different speeds due to the individual rhythmic values for each part; the second strand – concrete – is of tutti harmonised melodic phrases (extracted from the theme) that irregularly interrupt the series of pitches. The transformation from one state to another by changes in ‘time signature’ in M.C. Escher’s woodcut print Metamorphosis III influenced the strict rhythms and numerous time signature changes of the third movement (the changes in time signature were constructed by using small phrases from the theme; phrases that are played repeatedly by the first violin over the rigid quavers of the other instruments). Even though each movement in String Quartet No.1 represents an independent idea, the tension of the abstract versus the concrete of the second movement is present throughout the composition, thus strengthening the relationship between the movements further than the theme alone