Benedict Mason: String Quartet No1 (Score)

Quoting Mason: This work was conceived as a "travelogue" in five parts played without break, although the boundaries between these five "areas" are not always precisely definable. The first part, Perambulation Fast Travelling (Speed and distance) forms the second part. The note A is continually present somewhere or other in this movement. Against a hovering moto perpetuo the cello starts lyrically to distance itself from the rest. Afterwards at certain points the music collides in more savage rhythmic dislocation. The third part, Observing (Standing Still), returns to the principle of units, but here a primitive, rather serene and glowing fragment is continually distracted, starting and restarting, and a short-circuiting back to its beginning, as if the traveller is continually examining the same place or situation. This primitive fragments becomes motivic and permutated into all possible shapes to form the basis of material of the fourth part, Observing (Travelling Fast), another allegro culminating in a climactic "fugato". In this movement there are occasional episodes that relate to technical exercises like Sevc闂備焦鍎抽弨. Finally the last part, Returning (View Receding), is a quiet coda reviewing the concerns of the first part "modulated" by what has come between. The individual parts are also available for this work. catalogue number CH60985-01.