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String Quartet No. 1: I. Grave; sub. Allegro vivace

from String Quartets by Jeremy Beck

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about

In October of 1982, when I was a junior at the Mannes College of Music in New York City, I composed the first version of my String
Quartet No. 1. When that first incarnation of the quartet was performed the following month, I was dissatisfied with the overall result.
I stowed the composition away and did not return to it until a number of years had passed; in 1987, I substantially revised this piece.
I threw out the first movement (now destroyed). I then took the original third movement, recomposed certain passages, and determined it
should now stand as the new first movement. Retaining the second movement as written, I finally composed a new, third movement. The first
movement’s fast music is framed by a brief introduction, Grave, that returns as a type of epilogue to the movement. The main theme of the
Allegro vivace is first presented in that introduction within a series of chromatic harmonic changes scored in muted strings. The second
movement is a double canon, where the principal theme is transformed, through diminution, into the middle section’s main idea. Finally,
the third movement, Presto, combines lively syncopations and passages in a fugato style.

The original version of this composition was premiered 18 November 1982 at the Mannes College of Music in New York City by Marston Parker
and Julie Metz (violins); Yasmine Tetenbaum (viola); and Chris Costanza (cello). The present version of String Quartet No. 1 was premiered
7 November 1987 on a concert of my music I produced in New York City at Carnegie Recital Hall (Weill). The premiere was given by the Pinehurst
Chamber Ensemble, Moirsheen Kelly and Darryl Kubian (violins); Jonathan Hoxie (viola); and Tomás Ulrich (cello). I have also arranged this
composition for string orchestra. Retitled Symphony for Strings, this version was first read 29 June 2004 by the Riverside Symphony,
George Rothman, conductor, at Fordham University in New York City.

credits

from String Quartets, released September 18, 2023
San Gabriel String Quartet
Julie Metz and Ruth Bruegger, violins
Lynn Lusher Grants, viola; Maurice Grants, violoncello

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Jeremy Beck Louisville, Kentucky

Jeremy Beck “knows the importance of embracing the past while also going his own way. … [In] Beck’s forceful and expressive sound world … the writing is concise in structure and generous in tonal language, savouring both the dramatic and the poetic.” (Gramophone Magazine). ... more

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