Mason, Benedict - String Quartet No1

Quoting Mason: This work was conceived as a 'travelogue' in five parts played without break, although the boundaries between these five 'areas' are not always precisely definable. The first part,PerambulationFast Travelling(Speed and distance) forms the second part. The note A is continually present somewhere or other in this movement. Against a hovering moto perpetuo thecello starts lyricallyto distance itself from the rest. Afterwards at certain points the music collides in more savage rhythmic dislocation.

The third part,Observing (Standing Still), returns to the principle of units,but here a primitive,rather serene and glowing fragment is continually distracted, starting and restarting, and a short-circuiting back to its beginning, as if the traveller is continually examining the same place or situation.This primitivefragments becomes motivic and permutated into all possible shapes to form the basis of material of the fourth part,Observing (Travelling Fast), another allegro culminating in a climactic 'fugato'. In thismovement there areoccasional episodes that relate to technical exercises like Sevc k. Finally the last part, Returning (View Receding), is a quiet coda reviewing the concerns of the first part 'modulated' by what has comebetween.

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