Saturday, June 6, 2009

S.Q. "Daily" Update

The combination of slightly more employment and a dwindling number of weeks remaining this summer session has caused me to rethink this S.Q. Daily enterprise. It's been great fun and a wonderful learning experience for me so far, but the frequency is becoming detrimental to my dissertation's progress.

I will still likely post once every week or two, possibly focusing on Shostakovich's quartets 5-8. Sarah Reichardt has an intriguing book on this very subject that came out last November. (Composing the Modern Subject: Four String Quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich at Amazon, Google, and Ashgate.com)

Hopefully I will find some time to explore these quartets and Dr. Reichardt's work. But more importantly, hopefully I get my own quartet off the ground!

Update: I've now got a well-polished A section for Movement II, and a fine melody and sketches for the Movement III scherzo section. Hooray!

4 comments:

  1. Hooray! Good luck with your quartet. I'm sure it will be fantastic!

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  2. I always forget how enjoyable your blog is to read. I forget about it, then I spend some time catching up. Kudos.

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  3. Have you tried the following quartets?
    Shostakovich 15 (esp. the 1st and 4th mvmt), 13, 10, 5, 4
    Schnittke 4, 2 (esp. the 2nd mvmt)
    Bartok 6
    Schoenberg 3, 2 (esp. the 4th mvmt)
    Berg: Lyric suite

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  4. Hi Anonymous. Thanks for the suggestions!
    I've tried most of those composers, and most of those numbers, but not in those combinations. :) Perhaps I will add them to my study list before S.Q. No. 2!

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