String Quartet No. 3 (Rouse)

The String Quartet No. 3 is the third string quartet by the American composer Christopher Rouse. The work was jointly commissioned by the Festival of Arts and Ideas, the Calder Quartet, Chamber Music America, Carnegie Hall, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and the LaJolla Music Society. It was first performed at Yale University on June 18, 2010 by the Calder Quartet, to whom the piece is dedicated. The composition has a duration of roughly 22 minutes and is composed in one continuous movement.[1][2][3]

Composition

Background

The Calder Quartet had previously recorded Rouse's first and second string quartets and the group first approached the composer about a new commission in 2006. Rouse was unable to begin work on the piece for a couple of years, however, and completed the String Quartet No. 3 in 2009.[1]

Style and inspiration

Rouse described the style and inspiration for the string quartet in the score program notes, writing:

I have often heard in my mind's ear what I call "another music," a music whose difficulty and complexity would render it impractical for orchestral use, considering the size of the orchestral apparatus and the limited rehearsal time available for preparing works for that medium. Having duly warned the Calders of what I intended, I set about to try putting down on paper what this "other music" might sound like.

He continued:

The central focus of what I was hearing was a succession of extremely convulsive and unpredictable gestures rendered by the players in rhythmic unison — that is, these complex rhythms would have to be performed totally together by the four players: no small feat. The work is thus made up primarily of these rhythmically monodic ideas, though they sometimes do spin out of control into a series of imitative gestures. Though perhaps unpalatable to some, my overall description of the piece would be something akin to a schizophrenic having a grand mal seizure. This, at least, was the image to which I continually referred as I composed the music.

Rouse concluded, "The music is staggeringly difficult to play, and I believe this to be my most challenging and uncompromising work to date."[1]

Reception

Steve Smith of The New York Times highly lauded the piece, remarking:

From a melancholy opening filled with swooping glissandos, the 20-minute string quartet emphasizes group virtuosity with jagged bursts of notes deployed in rhythmic unison, mostly at high velocity. Likened by Mr. Rouse in a program note to a grand mal seizure and uneasy even in repose, the piece is unsparing in its demands for pinpoint accuracy, sudden dynamic contrasts and clear articulation. The Calder players met all of its challenges easily in an exacting account.[4]

Christian Hertzog of LA Weekly similarly declared the work to be "the most exciting, take-no-prisoners quartet since George Crumb's Black Angels (1971), and it should become just as popular."[5]

gollark: ```pythonprint("Hacked with python 3")```
gollark: ```print "Hacked with Python 2 or Lua"```
gollark: (produced by the common Unix tool `haxxdump`)
gollark: 011d3b0 ecda fe42 f33d d112 2b8c 7e1d 24d2 11e5011d3c0 2475 ae6a bb0f 0c59 592b 3e75 6074 5f61011d3d0 ff42 a907 c773 c81f 3095 97ba 7fe2 5270011d3e0 c021 d886 1dfc 01eb f22a 0174 38cb ab3e011d3f0 2476 6efa 2bb0 6dde cd92 0222 5467 7221011d400 bb13 2647 77f7 8c51 6206 e40d 3c85 117c011d410 86bb 928f 2234 bb31 298e dd89 7209 6a00011d420 49b1 182b 52fc 6659 f720 c14c 7064 213c011d430 be13 5b7f 36db 9228 232a be39 1c9e 4065011d440 3e92 3fa8 a538 8a60 c599 7c88 9f72 9748011d450 8a5d fc83 b21b e48d 666a 8670 3d61 0225
gollark: I have made many a useless side project.

References
  1. Rouse, Christopher (2010). String Quartet No. 3: Program Note by the Composer. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
  2. Rizzo, Frank (January 14, 2010). "International Fest Rolls Out Lineup". Hartford Courant. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
  3. Rizzo, Frank (June 10, 2010). "After 15 Years, New Haven Arts, Idea Festival Still Stimulating". Hartford Courant. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
  4. Smith, Steve (April 17, 2011). "Avoiding 'Moderato' Becomes a Style". The New York Times. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
  5. Hertzog, Christian (December 23, 2011). "The Classical Music Concerts We're Most Looking Forward to in 2012". LA Weekly. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
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