Works with & for string quartet

"seeking all that’s still unsung" (2023-2024) was commissioned by the Lydian Quartet. The work was made possible by the Chamber-Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This is the world premiere performance in Slosberg Recital Hall at Brandeis University on April 6, 2024.

The opening movement, "chorale canons," which is a series of increasingly intricate canons of a chord progression. The movement was inspired, in part, by a portion of the following poem...a poem which, in its own way, is a canon:

"…who will say of me I kissed her who will say of me I kissed someone who kissed 
her or I kissed someone who kissed someone who kissed someone who kissed her."

from "[I hope when it happens]"
"frank: sonnets" by Diane Seuss

seeking all that's still unsung - a collection of musings on circles & songs & tunes & speeches, I

"seeking all that’s still unsung" (2023-2024) was commissioned by the Lydian Quartet. The work was made possible by the Chamber-Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This is the world premiere performance in Slosberg Recital Hall at Brandeis University on April 6, 2024.

The quartet contains three “remixes” of songs from The Sacred Harp Songbook; "504 Wood Street," "I’m Going Home," and "Can I Leave You?" In their original versions, each song is in 4-parts, sung be a group of singers of any size and any level of training. The songbook combines mensural and shape-note notations, allowing for nearly anyone to be able to participate regardless of their musical training or background. The 2nd. movement is "504 Wood Street (remix 1)." 

The second movement was inspired by a portion of the following song, which is decidedly NOT from The Sacred Harp Songbook:

"At some point, you' d have to live as if the truth was true."
-Tamara Linderman, The Weather Station, from "Loss"

seeking all that's still unsung - a collection of musings on circles & songs & tunes & speeches, II

"seeking all that’s still unsung" (2023-2024) was commissioned by the Lydian Quartet. The work was made possible by the Chamber-Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This is the world premiere performance in Slosberg Recital Hall at Brandeis University on April 6, 2024.

This is the 3rd movement: "blah, blah, blah (after Greta Thunberg)."

"blah, blah, blah (After Greta Thunberg)" takes the rhythms and pitch material from Thunberg’s speech at the 2021 Youth4Climate Conference in Milano. It was this speech where her version of the “blah, blah, blah” moniker took hold. So much of the message in that speech could easily be applied to other areas of society, although none as potentially dire as climate catastrophe. For me, the world of new music has a lot of “blah, blah, blah” occupying it; I think most fields do. The words of Thunberg's that strike me most potently are: "We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope it. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people." I think this is true: Institutions might wield the power, but they do not wield the hope.

This movement was inspired by a line from "The Double" by José Saramago:

"Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered."

seeking all that's still unsung - a collection of musings on circles & songs & tunes & speeches, III

"seeking all that’s still unsung" (2023-2024) was commissioned by the Lydian Quartet. The work was made possible by the Chamber-Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This is the world premiere performance in Slosberg Recital Hall at Brandeis University on April 6, 2024.

The quartet contains three “remixes” of songs from The Sacred Harp Songbook; "504 Wood Street," "I’m Going Home," and "Can I Leave You?" 

The Sacred Harp Songbook approach to combining voices has intrigued me since I participated at an Old Time Music Festival in upstate New York in the Summer 2010 with my friends artists Jennifer Coates and David Humphrey. While there, I played viola in spontaneously formed fiddle groups, completely by ear, listening and contributing differently than I had been trained and previously practiced. One evening after getting stoned, I wandered the festival grounds with David and heard group singing that was decidedly NOT Old Time or Bach chorales. I came upon a group of about 30-40 people jamming on The Sacred Harp songs, music I had seen and heard many times before, but never live. It was miraculous. And it set in motion many things that to this day I find myself re-examining again and again: skill, desire, purpose, utility, intention, vulnerability, beauty, memory, absence, belonging. 

My 2nd Sacred Harp Songbook remix in the quartet, "I'm Going Home," was inspired by the words of artist Helen Frankenthaler:

"I think technique determines aesthetic as much as aesthetic determines a new medium."

seeking all that's still unsung - a collection of musings on circles & songs & tunes & speeches, IV

"seeking all that’s still unsung" is a string quartet that was written for and is dedicated to the members of the Lydian Quartet (past & present), an ensemble that has been extremely supportive and central to my creative life for more than three decades. I am especially grateful to Judy Eissenberg, who thought of this project, saw it through, and has always been truly generous, if not fully honest to the point of 'being real' about how life & art works. This work was made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The movements to the piece are:
I - chorale canons  00:00-05:58
II - 504 Wood Street (remix 1)  06:01-09:10
III - blah, blah, blah (after Greta Thunberg)  09:15-17:20
IV - I'm Going Home (remix 2)  17:24-21:43
V - the rub: die Torschlusspanik  21:47-26:14
VI - Can I Leave You? (remix 3)  26:15-30:21
  
"chorale canons" is a striking new way for me to begin a piece. The opening chord progression is typical of much of my music: non-functional, more modal than tonal, rife with symmetries and near circular qualities, and very connected to the properties of endless voice leading. This progression is the music for the entire piece; a series of chords that melt into one another, containing all the qualities of multi-part vocal writing from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, while being nothing like that at all. My chorale is only the juicy parts; the “tune” will not show up for a while, if ever. This “unchorale” of mine is then set against itself in various ways using canonic. Each canon is more intricate than the previous one and accumulates towards distortion until reaching a rupture with tearingly rich, twisted harmonies that almost collapse and struggle to coalesce in time to "right the wrong" and allow the music to move forward into the future gently.
  
The quartet contains 3 “remixes” of Sacred Harp songs: "504 Wood Street," "I’m Going Home," and "Can I Leave You?" I participated at an Old Time Music Festival in upstate New York in the Summer 2010 with my friends artists Jennifer Coates and David Humphrey. One evening after getting stoned, I wandered the festival grounds with David and heard group singing and came upon a group of about 40 people jamming on Sacred Harp songs, music I had seen and heard many times before, but never live. It was miraculous. It set in motion many things that to this day I find myself re-examining again and again: skill, desire, purpose, utility, intention, vulnerability, beauty, memory, absence, belonging. 
  
"blah, blah, blah (After Greta Thunberg)" takes the rhythms and pitch material from Thunberg’s speech at the 2021 Youth4Climate Conference in Milano. It was this speech that her “blah, blah, blah” moniker took hold. Much of the speech’s message could easily be applied to other areas of society, although none as potentially dire as climate catastrophe. For me, the world of new music has a lot of “blah, blah, blah” occupying it.

"the rub: die Torschlusspanik" is an untranslatable German describing the panic one feels when they are running out of time as they gradually slowly move through the gate of life. In this movement I imagine the "rubbing away" of the prescribed manner of playing the instrument as one is taught/meant to play. This is first done with retuning, then by location (it is difficult to play as a quartet when the members get up and walk away!), and finally as the extension of our voices. 

As I move away from playing and performing, I am focusing on making...writing...the music I have wanted to make first and foremost, and doing so with others. I do not want to be passing through this gate of life and wonder “what if.” "Can I Leave You?" is a return. My remix of this touching song on the altered instruments is a formation where all four voices are equal and different and one.

seeking all that's still unsung, a collection of musings on circles & songs & tunes & speeches[FULL]

Composed as part of the L.A. based Lyris Quartet's 2015 "Intimate Letters" commission/recording project. I imagined that if a letter is meant to be read, then music is meant to be heard. In this is 10-11 minute piece for string quartet, all the twists and turns that instigate change are begun by the second violin and viola...the first violin and cello have no option but to oblige and follow suit.

inside voice for string quartet (2015)

Recorded by Lydian Quartet

I – NODE: Tuning Knot  00:00-03:22
II – Recently Found Fragments: Chant Loop  03:28-11:38
III – Striding Rituals: Nocturnal Gatherings for Mass Wooing  11:44-17:30
III.5 or 5.IV – Optional habits  17:43-18:40
IV – CODEX: I know I know this (…almost remembering…)  18:44-25:04
V – Turn the Corner: Post-Rapture Celebration  25:08-28:04
VI - NODE: Ex nihilo…In nihil [-for Mary Ruth-]  28:05-35:30

Treatises for an Unrecovered Past is dedicated to the Lydian String Quartet and was composed as part of their Composition Commission Award, which was made possible by the generosity and vision of Marjorie B. and Martin Cohn. It was composed in San Francisco and Cambridge and is 35 minutes long.

Treatises for an Unrecovered Past (2013-14/rev. 2017) for string quartet

"the right to be forgotten" for 27 pipe seanghwang, detuned harp and string quartet (2017), was composed in collaboration with the 2017 Pacific Rim Music Festival.

It is a distilled, oversimplified understanding of the concept of "leaving that which has happened behind to fall away" that fascinates me. Perhaps the application of this "forgetting" to the events in people's lives could be the mechanism by which a piece of music unfolds. On its surface, forgetting seems to contradict the underlying principle that music is connected with acts of memory. I am asking the question: Is forgetting necessary for memory? Must everything be remembered, even if it is not recalled fully, or correctly, or is blended with other memories (real or false), or simply undergoes the transformation that happens with each simple act of recollection?

Perhaps a new beginning could emerge in the middle, or even at the end of the piece; perhaps a "musical catastrophe," instead of becoming fixed in place by a narrow application of structural function, could simply be allowed to evaporate. The opening need not be so deeply remembered and impact musical events later on, or if it does, parts of it can be forgotten. It could be part of a more spontaneous drama that unfolds, significant at the moment, but not lingering to affect all that follows.

the right to be forgotten for seanghwang, detuned harp and string quartet (2017)

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(pronounced Road-HEE or Rhoad-DAH)

Works with & for string quartet

Kurt Rohde