Abstract Mirror

Score

Forces or Category: String quintet

Abstract Mirror is a single movement work for string quintet
The composer writes: 'After listening to the Schubert Quintet, it occurred to ...

Abstract Mirror

Score

Description

Abstract Mirror is a single movement work for string quintet
The composer writes: 'After listening to the Schubert Quintet, it occurred to me that one of the many virtues of that score is the way the second cello is absorbed effortlessly into the texture. I became fascinated with the reverse, highlighting the added sonority of the bass texture.' The title refers not only to the reverse image that a mirror provides but also to the idea of fragmentation, refraction, and distortion.

Programme Notes:

I have, for many years, wanted to write a quintet using an extra cello. Listening to the great Schubert Quintet, it occurred to me that one of the many virtues of that score is the way the second cello is absorbed effortlessly into the texture whereas I became fascinated with quite the reverse; with pointing up the added sonority of bass texture even, at one point, lowering the bottom string of the second cello. I was also attracted to the idea of initially using the viola as a sort of middle-man between the contrasting pairs of violins and cellos which often play at the extremes of their respective ranges.
This grouping is immediately apparent at the opening where the outer instruments hold chords against the chanting viola. By the time we reach the end of the music a transformation has occurred and the same material emerges in a quite different light. During the journey the instruments move in and out of integration, sometimes acting as a single minded corpus but frequently returning to a state of division.
The title refers not only to the reverse image that a mirror provides (reflected again in the use of pairs) but also to the idea of fragmentation, refraction and distortion.
Abstract Mirror was commissioned by The City Music Society (with funds donated by its members) and the Chilingirian String Quartet. It is in a single movement and lasts around twenty minutes.
© 2002 Michael Berkeley
Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press

Abstract Mirror

Score

Michael Berkeley

Composer Information

Michael Berkeley (b.1948)

Michael Berkeley was born in 1948. He studied composition, singing, and piano at the Royal Academy of Music but it was not until his late twenties, when he went to study with Richard Rodney Bennett, that Berkeley began to concentrate exclusively on composing. In 1977 he was awarded the Guinness Prize for Composition; two years later he was appointed Associate Composer to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Since then Michael's music has been played all over the globe and by some of the world's finest musicians. Most of Michael's significant orchestral work, much of his chamber music and his operas are available on CD as part of the Chandos Berkeley Edition. For ten years from 1995 Michael was artistic director of the Cheltenham International Festival of Music. He currently presents Radio 3's Private Passions, which won the Broadcasting Press Guild's Radio Programme of the Year Award in 1996, and is Chairman of the Governors of The Royal Ballet.

Michael Berkeley's website