Freedom Waltz

Disturbance

This is my first string quartet composition that premiered in the CCRMA at Stanford University, on the 1st of July 2015. Poetica tells a love story. Even though a love story sounds so trite and cliché, music allows me to be me when I am telling the story in my mind. I am in love with this idea: music is real and unique. It can make the most basic theme sparkle and shine. In Poetica,  the 1st violin is the girl, the viola is the boy. The 2nd violin and the cello are their friends or the environment surrounding them. At some parts they join the 1st violin or the viola, which can be interpreted as their support to their ideas. In some parts they remain silent, where they ‘reflect’ upon what the boy or the girl has just said or is saying at the moment.
The piece has two sections. The first section is in 4/4 time and the key of A minor. It starts with the cello playing mysteriously and then the violin adding to it. The enigmatic effect is meant to represent the uncertainty of the future. There is a girl and a boy with a distance in between. The boy sees the girl before she sees him, which is why the viola (boy) enters before the violin (girl). He is in love at first sight. As the violin enters expressively, he is watching her in silence. She has no idea about his thoughts or him, she is only being herself. The emotive, singing like way the violin enters suggests that she is a special and unique girl. As the piece progresses, the violin and the viola intersect at certain bars, which shows that the girl is slowly realizing the boy. After that the viola plays his solo, where he is trying to impress the girl. Then the girl replies naively, with support from the 2nd violin. She is novice in love. The cello and the viola follows, creating a solid sound that lasts for a few bars. The sound ends with the viola playing the notes la and mi: here the boy is begging the girl saying “Love me(la mi) please”. All instruments play the tonic note A, which makes it an effective ending for the sentence. As the girl is trying to make up her mind, she remains silent. She listens to the boy and her environment. Then comes the waltz like part, where she is going back and forth, still trying to decide what to do. The first section ends with the violin playing the tonic note A, as she finally admits she is completely in love with the boy and she can’t hold it in anymore. 
The second part is in C major, the relative major of A minor, and is in 6/8 time. It is a waltz. It’s a celebration part, to cherish the fact that the girl and the boy are finally together. It’s a resolution of all the uncertainty. Everyone is ecstatic. 
This piece is a reminder that even if sometimes things seem foggy and you don’t know what will happen at the end, everything can turn out as the way you want it to be!


Poetica

"Questions" Improv

Improvisation recorded on 12th of June 2014. Beginning of summer, such a "relief".

Ece Kutucular

Popular tracks