Strinennia

Instrumentation: for string quintet (v-v-v-va-c)

Duration: about 15 minutes

Program Notes

By the end of every winter, I am desperate for spring. Thus I have come to embrace the Slavic holiday of Strinennia, March 9th, which invites the return of the birds, with their musical chattering and vitality. So from the depths of every oppositional silence should we invite a move to an equinox position, and its mood of communion and possibilism.

This piece offers three movements to that communion of the possible: invocation, dance, and finally the birds' return. To acknowledge Strinennia's Slavic insight, I use something of an Eastern European tonality for my main language, especially in the first and third movements. In the third, I also attempt to describe the chatter of spring birds, with a background of early insect noises. Here I suggest a thankful melody that is closely related to the melody of the invocation, and paint it as a dialogue with the raucous carrying on of the birds, carrying us on with them.

Performance Notes

This piece was originally written for five violins, but I think it best as a string quintet. I wrote the five violin version for the advanced Suzuki violin students of Madison's Sonora Strings ensemble. There are a few fast and flashy runs, especially in the second movement, but I believe all fairly easy ones. The third movement, where I describe the chattering of birds and insects, contains quite a bit of extended technique where players get to use their instruments in some unusual ways.

I have also scored a version of the piece for five mandolins, leading to a similar riot of technique in the third movement. While scoring the piece for mandolins, I made a number of changes in the distribution of the music among the various voices. In this version, the lower two voices are scored so that they could be played on a mandola or a mandocello. Thus, this version is really for five "mandos" as opposed to five mandolins in particular. Also, I increased the general gradient of the hardest parts to easiest parts from voice I to voice V, again in part to make the lower two voices suitable for playing with either mandolin, mandola, or mandocello.

Actual Notes

For string quintet (violin-violin-violin-viola-cello)

Movement I: Invocation

Performance: 320 bit MP3 of computer playback (3 megs)

Movement II: Dance

Performance: 320 bit MP3 of computer playback (3 megs)

Movement III: The Return of the Birds

Performance: 320 bit MP3 of computer playback (6 megs)

Score and Parts

Full score PDF

Violin I PDF

Violin II PDF

Violin III PDF

Viola PDF

Cello PDF

For performance permission, please contact the composer.

 

 

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Page last updated June 5, 2010