String Quartets 1–3
Encyclopedia
String Quartets 1–3 is a 1991 album by the Balanescu Quartet
(Alexander Balanescu
, Jonathan Carney
, Kate Musker, and Tony Hinnigan
) and the fifteenth release by Michael Nyman
. It is the second album of his music (after Out of the Ruins
) on which he did not perform or conduct, though he does provide liner notes. String Quartet No. 3 is built out of Out of the Ruins and became a fixture in numerous Nyman film scores in the 1990s.
The album was issued by Argo Records
with two different covers. Decca Records
reissued the album in the UK on July 8, 2002, as part of a The British Music Collection, giving it yet a third cover.
Nyman's four string quartets are the subject of chapter 7 in Pwyll ap Siôn's The Music of Michael Nyman: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts.
The album is the first of several recordings of the Nyman string quartets. The Lyric Quartet would also record String Quartets 2 and 3, and sections of String Quartet No. 4 on String Quartets 2, 3 & 4/If & Why
(2002). The Nyman Quartet (Musker and Hinnigan with violinists Gabrielle Lester
and Catherine Thompson), according to the liner notes of Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit
(2006), is set to record all four some time in the future.
. Nyman had attended a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven
's Grosse Fuge by the group, and found it the most theatrical performance on a string quartet he had ever witnessed, performed as though Beethoven had been trying to break through the limitations of the string quartet to create an orchestral sound. The quartet was originally intended to be a "compendium" of string quartet literature, but he decided that two pieces from different eras were enough of a contrast. It is built out of three distinct and diverse pre-existing music sources: John Bull
's Walsingham Variations, Arnold Schoenberg
's String Quartet No. 2, and Alex North
's "Unchained Melody
". The use of Bull is an homage to his professor, Thurston Dart
, who presented Nyman with the Musica Britannica
edition of Bull's keyboard works as a graduation gift. "Walsingham" was a popular song in Bull's time, and Nyman's use of "Unchained Melody" (originally written for a 1955
prison
film titled Unchained
and famously covered
by The Righteous Brothers
, and the favorite song of Nyman's wife, Aet) is a contemporary equivalent. As noted by Pwyll Ap Siôn, "Unchained Melody" is musically related to "Walsingham", as its opening three-note pattern of C-D-E is a slight variation of the melody of "Walsingham". "Unchained Melody" enters in figure H (measure 274) over a bass line of variation 9 of "Walsingham" that previously appeared in figure E.
Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2 is notable in two ways: first, it broke with convention by adding a part for a soprano
vocalist, and second, it broke away from the tonal language standard and paved the way for modernist music. Nyman incorporates the Schoenberg material beginning in figure B, and it does not return until figure I. The material Nyman uses is an eight-note (two-measure) phrase for the cello
transcribed by Nyman for first violin
. Siôn notes that Nyman compresses the nearly two-octave phrase into one octave. When it returns in figure I, Nyman has added tremolo
, as well as syncopation
more characteristic of his own style.
n Bharata Natyam tradition. Melodically and harmonically, it is Western classical music, while structurally it is Karnatak
music. The Balanescu Quartet performed this work with the original dance as well as adding it to their concert repertoire. Miniatures was renamed Configurations when Jeyasingh added two additional dancers to the choreography.
Each of the six movements are in different rhythms: the first movement is 4-beat, the second 5-beat, the third 6-beat, the fourth 7-beat, and the fifth, 9-beat (2+3+2+2). The sixth and final movement is in multiple cycles of the preceding beat patterns.
n folk music, along with material from his choral work Out of the Ruins
, via a process Nyman describes as "translation." It affected much of Nyman's composition throughout the 1990s—riffs, in particular, a seven-note scalar
ostinato
, from it appear in À la folie
, Carrington
(in which it was used as a temp track
and ultimately was transformed into a theme for Lytton Strachey
), Practical Magic
(not used in the finished film), The End of the Affair
, and The Claim
. The translation is not as simple as it may sound, as Pwyll ap Siôn notes, the first violin has new melodic material higher than the highest notes of the soprano
melody, which is largely for the second violin. In addition, he elides caesuras and makes use of the stringed instruments' ability to sustain far longer than a human voice. Among the passages new to the string quartet are measures 17-24, 125-126, and a cello part beginning at measure 63.
Some cause of the variation is that the quartet is a celebration of the fall of Nicolae Ceauşescu
, whereas Out of the Ruins is an expression of the hopelessness after an earthquake. Siôn describes numerous places where the accents and descriptors of the work indicate a very different feeling and approach to the music, with the quartet being much more aggravated, while the choral work reflects sorrow without indignation.
Like the first String Quartet, the piece is a reflection of Nyman's postgraduate work with Thurston Dart, who sent him to Romania in 1965 to gather folk music. The Romanian folk melodies that have been added to Out of the Ruins were all gathered on that trip.
Balanescu Quartet
The Balanescu Quartet is an avant-garde string quartet founded in 1987 by Alexander Bălănescu that achieved fame through the release of several complex cover versions of songs by German experimental electronic music band Kraftwerk on their album "Possessed"....
(Alexander Balanescu
Alexander Balanescu
Alexander Bălănescu is a violinist and founder of the Balanescu Quartet.He emigrated with his family to Israel in 1969....
, Jonathan Carney
Jonathan Carney
Jonathan Carney is a violinist, violist, and conductor noted for his interpretations of Luciano Berio, Michael Nyman, Max Bruch, Johannes Brahms, Jean Sibelius, Felix Mendelssohn, John Cage, Bruno Maderna, Pablo Sarasate, Fritz Kreisler, Krzysztof Penderecki, Paul Hindemith, Philip Glass, Toru...
, Kate Musker, and Tony Hinnigan
Tony Hinnigan
Anthony "Tony" Hinnigan is a musician from Glasgow. He is best known for his work with Michael Nyman , Ennio Morricone, and James Horner. He plays cello as well as Irish whistle and various Andean woodwind instruments...
) and the fifteenth release by Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman
Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...
. It is the second album of his music (after Out of the Ruins
Out of the Ruins
Out of the Ruins is a choral work by Michael Nyman for an eponymous BBC documentary by Agnieszka Piotrowska in commemorating the first anniversary of the 1988 Spitak earthquake in Armenia 7 December 1988, which aired on the BBC's 40 Minutes. The texts are from Grigor Narekatsi's Book of Lamentations...
) on which he did not perform or conduct, though he does provide liner notes. String Quartet No. 3 is built out of Out of the Ruins and became a fixture in numerous Nyman film scores in the 1990s.
The album was issued by Argo Records
Argo Records
Argo Records was started in December of 1955 to accommodate some of the rapidly growing recording activity at Chess Records. Originally the label was called Marterry, but bandleader Ralph Marterie objected, and within a couple of months the imprint was renamed Argo.Initially, Argo offered a...
with two different covers. Decca Records
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
reissued the album in the UK on July 8, 2002, as part of a The British Music Collection, giving it yet a third cover.
Nyman's four string quartets are the subject of chapter 7 in Pwyll ap Siôn's The Music of Michael Nyman: Texts, Contexts, and Intertexts.
The album is the first of several recordings of the Nyman string quartets. The Lyric Quartet would also record String Quartets 2 and 3, and sections of String Quartet No. 4 on String Quartets 2, 3 & 4/If & Why
String Quartets 2, 3 & 4/If & Why
String Quartets 2, 3 & 4/If & Why is an album by Simon Haram, The Lyric Quartet, and members of The Michael Nyman Band, featuring music by Michael Nyman. "If" and "Why" are songs written for The Diary of Anne Frank, where they were performed by Hilary Summers and the Michael Nyman Band...
(2002). The Nyman Quartet (Musker and Hinnigan with violinists Gabrielle Lester
Gabrielle Lester
Gabrielle Lester is an English classical violinist and orchestra leader. She maintains an extensive discography of classical, popular and soundtrack recordings.-Career:...
and Catherine Thompson), according to the liner notes of Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit
Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit
Acts of Beauty • Exit no Exit is the 55th album by Michael Nyman, the eighth on his own label, and the third of these to consist entirely of previously unrecorded work. He does not perform on the album, but composed and produced it. Acts of Beauty is a song cycle with texts by various writers...
(2006), is set to record all four some time in the future.
String Quartet No. 1
The String Quartet No. 1 (1985) was commissioned by the Arditti QuartetArditti Quartet
The Arditti Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1974. The quartet is associated particularly with contemporary music.-Early history:The quartet was founded in 1974 by violinist Irvine Arditti together with John Senter, Levine Andrade and Lenox Mackenzie...
. Nyman had attended a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Grosse Fuge by the group, and found it the most theatrical performance on a string quartet he had ever witnessed, performed as though Beethoven had been trying to break through the limitations of the string quartet to create an orchestral sound. The quartet was originally intended to be a "compendium" of string quartet literature, but he decided that two pieces from different eras were enough of a contrast. It is built out of three distinct and diverse pre-existing music sources: John Bull
John Bull (composer)
John Bull was an English composer, musician, and organ builder. He was a renowned keyboard performer of the virginalist school and most of his compositions were written for this medium.-Life:...
's Walsingham Variations, Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
's String Quartet No. 2, and Alex North
Alex North
Alex North was an American composer who wrote the first jazz-based film score and one of the first modernist scores written in Hollywood ....
's "Unchained Melody
Unchained Melody
"Unchained Melody" is a 1955 song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret. It has become one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, by some counts having spawned over 500 versions in hundreds of different languages....
". The use of Bull is an homage to his professor, Thurston Dart
Thurston Dart
Robert Thurston Dart , was a British musicologist, conductor and keyboard player. From 1964 he was Professor of Music at King's College London....
, who presented Nyman with the Musica Britannica
Musica Britannica
Musica Britannica was founded in 1951 as an authoritative national collection of British music. It is designed to stand alongside existing library editions, and to explore the vast heritage of material still largely untouched by them, thus making available a representative survey of the British...
edition of Bull's keyboard works as a graduation gift. "Walsingham" was a popular song in Bull's time, and Nyman's use of "Unchained Melody" (originally written for a 1955
1955 in film
The year 1955 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 3 - The musical Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.* June 27 - The last ever Republic serial, King of the Carnival, is released....
prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
film titled Unchained
Unchained (film)
Unchained is a 1955 prison film based on the non-fiction book Prisoners are People by Kenyon J. Scudder. The film is most remembered for its theme song, "Unchained Melody", which was a #1 R&B hit for both Al Hibbler & Roy Hamilton in 1955, with Hibbler's version also reaching #3 on the Billboard...
and famously covered
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
by The Righteous Brothers
The Righteous Brothers
The Righteous Brothers were the musical duo of Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield. They recorded from 1963 through 1975, and continued to perform until Hatfield's death in 2003...
, and the favorite song of Nyman's wife, Aet) is a contemporary equivalent. As noted by Pwyll Ap Siôn, "Unchained Melody" is musically related to "Walsingham", as its opening three-note pattern of C-D-E is a slight variation of the melody of "Walsingham". "Unchained Melody" enters in figure H (measure 274) over a bass line of variation 9 of "Walsingham" that previously appeared in figure E.
Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2 is notable in two ways: first, it broke with convention by adding a part for a soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
vocalist, and second, it broke away from the tonal language standard and paved the way for modernist music. Nyman incorporates the Schoenberg material beginning in figure B, and it does not return until figure I. The material Nyman uses is an eight-note (two-measure) phrase for the cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
transcribed by Nyman for first violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
. Siôn notes that Nyman compresses the nearly two-octave phrase into one octave. When it returns in figure I, Nyman has added tremolo
Tremolo
Tremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term that describes various trembling effects, falling roughly into two types. The first is a rapid reiteration...
, as well as syncopation
Syncopation
In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
more characteristic of his own style.
String Quartet No. 2
String Quartet No. 2 (1988) was commissioned for a dance work called Miniatures, choreographed and performed by Shobana Jeyasingh, who dictated the rhythmic structure of the piece, based on the South IndiaSouth India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
n Bharata Natyam tradition. Melodically and harmonically, it is Western classical music, while structurally it is Karnatak
Carnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
music. The Balanescu Quartet performed this work with the original dance as well as adding it to their concert repertoire. Miniatures was renamed Configurations when Jeyasingh added two additional dancers to the choreography.
Each of the six movements are in different rhythms: the first movement is 4-beat, the second 5-beat, the third 6-beat, the fourth 7-beat, and the fifth, 9-beat (2+3+2+2). The sixth and final movement is in multiple cycles of the preceding beat patterns.
String Quartet No. 3
String Quartet No. 3 (1990), commissioned by Alexander Balanescu, is based on RomaniaRomania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n folk music, along with material from his choral work Out of the Ruins
Out of the Ruins
Out of the Ruins is a choral work by Michael Nyman for an eponymous BBC documentary by Agnieszka Piotrowska in commemorating the first anniversary of the 1988 Spitak earthquake in Armenia 7 December 1988, which aired on the BBC's 40 Minutes. The texts are from Grigor Narekatsi's Book of Lamentations...
, via a process Nyman describes as "translation." It affected much of Nyman's composition throughout the 1990s—riffs, in particular, a seven-note scalar
Musical scale
In music, a scale is a sequence of musical notes in ascending and descending order. Most commonly, especially in the context of the common practice period, the notes of a scale will belong to a single key, thus providing material for or being used to conveniently represent part or all of a musical...
ostinato
Ostinato
In music, an ostinato is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice. An ostinato is always a succession of equal sounds, wherein each note always has the same weight or stress. The repeating idea may be a rhythmic pattern, part of a tune, or a complete melody in...
, from it appear in À la folie
À la folie
The music by Michael Nyman has been praised as one of his better works, and considered unusually buried in the sound mix of the film. The album is Nyman's 23rd release, and the fourteenth with the Michael Nyman Band...
, Carrington
Carrington (film)
Carrington is a biographical film written and directed by Christopher Hampton about the life of the English painter Dora Carrington , who was known simply as "Carrington"...
(in which it was used as a temp track
Temp track
A temp track is an existing piece of music or audio which is used in film production during the editing phase. It serves as a guideline for the mood or atmosphere the director is looking for in a scene....
and ultimately was transformed into a theme for Lytton Strachey
Lytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey was a British writer and critic. He is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit...
), Practical Magic
Practical Magic
Practical Magic is a 1998 American fantasy film directed by Griffin Dunne and starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as witches who carry on a family legacy of witchcraft and tragedy. The film is based on a book of the same name by Alice Hoffman...
(not used in the finished film), The End of the Affair
The End of the Affair (1999 film)
Michael Nyman would later use "Diary of Love" to open and close his solo album, The Piano Sings . As with many of Nyman's 1990s scores, he incorporates material from his String Quartet No.3, which was in turn based on a choral piece titled Out of the Ruins.-Track listing:#Diary of Hate 2:38#Henry...
, and The Claim
The Claim
The Claim is a 2000 British Western/romance film directed by Michael Winterbottom. The screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce is loosely based on the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. The original music score is composed by Michael Nyman....
. The translation is not as simple as it may sound, as Pwyll ap Siôn notes, the first violin has new melodic material higher than the highest notes of the soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
melody, which is largely for the second violin. In addition, he elides caesuras and makes use of the stringed instruments' ability to sustain far longer than a human voice. Among the passages new to the string quartet are measures 17-24, 125-126, and a cello part beginning at measure 63.
Some cause of the variation is that the quartet is a celebration of the fall of Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
, whereas Out of the Ruins is an expression of the hopelessness after an earthquake. Siôn describes numerous places where the accents and descriptors of the work indicate a very different feeling and approach to the music, with the quartet being much more aggravated, while the choral work reflects sorrow without indignation.
Like the first String Quartet, the piece is a reflection of Nyman's postgraduate work with Thurston Dart, who sent him to Romania in 1965 to gather folk music. The Romanian folk melodies that have been added to Out of the Ruins were all gathered on that trip.
Track listing
String Quartet No. 2- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
String Quartet No. 3 - beginning
- fig. D
String Quartet No. 1 - beginning
- fig. B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
Personnel
- Michael NymanMichael NymanMichael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...
, composerComposerA composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
and liner notesLiner notesLiner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes.-Origin:...
- Balanescu QuartetBalanescu QuartetThe Balanescu Quartet is an avant-garde string quartet founded in 1987 by Alexander Bălănescu that achieved fame through the release of several complex cover versions of songs by German experimental electronic music band Kraftwerk on their album "Possessed"....
: - Alexander BalanescuAlexander BalanescuAlexander Bălănescu is a violinist and founder of the Balanescu Quartet.He emigrated with his family to Israel in 1969....
: violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
I - Jonathan CarneyJonathan CarneyJonathan Carney is a violinist, violist, and conductor noted for his interpretations of Luciano Berio, Michael Nyman, Max Bruch, Johannes Brahms, Jean Sibelius, Felix Mendelssohn, John Cage, Bruno Maderna, Pablo Sarasate, Fritz Kreisler, Krzysztof Penderecki, Paul Hindemith, Philip Glass, Toru...
: violin II - Kate Musker: violaViolaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
- Anthony HinniganTony HinniganAnthony "Tony" Hinnigan is a musician from Glasgow. He is best known for his work with Michael Nyman , Ennio Morricone, and James Horner. He plays cello as well as Irish whistle and various Andean woodwind instruments...
: celloCelloThe cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
- Producer: Andrew Cornall
- Engineer: John Dunkerley
- Tape editor: Simon Bertram
- Publisher: Kelly Music
- Series design: Joe Ewart at Assorted Images
- Art direction: Ann Bradbeer
- Cover art: Charcoal Drawings of the Balanescu Quartet by Paul RichardsPaul Richards (artist)Paul Richards is a British figurative artist and part-time lecturer at the Slade School of Fine Art.Richards was educated at St Martins School of Art and Maidstone School of Art. He came to prominence in the seventies for performance-based art he produced with Bruce McLean in Nice Style, the...
External links
- String Quartets 1-3 on MichaelNyman.com including the complete liner notes.