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This 1996 quartet took its impetus from two sources – the first is the work of artist Paul Klee, in whose paintings I saw the sparks of many musical ideas; the second is the idea of a journey, one which begins as a physical negotiation of various terrains and cultures but which ends up as a spiritual travel through life and death.
Previous works such as my second quartet and third piano trio also took inspiration from works of art, but whereas those pieces are in a number of distinct movements – each one relating to a specific painting or sculpture – in this work I wanted to progress from this separatist approach. Therefore I decided to construct a narrative, both musical and philosophical, which would enable me to incorporate the various musical ideas inspired by the Klee works into a single overarching concept.
Of the seven paintings which became important for this quartet, three are to me intimately associated with the notion of place – 'Pastoral Rhythms', 'Hammamet with Mosque' and 'The Legend of the Nile'. Two more are bound up with the idea of death – 'Death and Fire' and 'Captive', while another, 'Ad marginem', is pivotal in the transition between physical and spiritual. The remaining picture, 'Heroic Strokes of the Bow', seemed remarkably appropriate in the context of a string quartet and so the musical ideas I found there begin the work and recur somewhat altered at various points intimating that the protagonists in the drama, represented by the players themselves, are undergoing certain metamorphoses as their journey progresses.
The work does not finish with death, however, since the final painting, 'Captive', is for me to do with the mythical ferryman Charon transporting departed souls across the Styx, and so the motion of the work, which has ground to a halt in the face of apparent finality, starts up again as the players begin this final, open-ended part of their journey.
'towards the Far Country' was commissioned by the West Cork Chamber Music Festival and premiered by the Vanbrugh Quartet at the Spitalfields Festival in 1997.
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Whitehead, County Antrim
United Kingdom