As if You'd See the Light

Written in 2019 for String Quartet (11 minutes)

Graciously read by the Cong Quartet www.congquartet.com/

 The title of this piece comes from the title of a beautiful photograph by Susanne Stemmer. Although this piece is not related to Stemmer’s work, I think their work completely captures some sort of imagined space, or place that this piece takes me. I highly encourage you to seek out their work at https://www.susannestemmer.com

 There is a rather intense preoccupation with color in this quartet – much more than some of my other music. At the time, I was trying to be extremely detail oriented. You can see a similar method with pieces like Lighter Shades. At the same time, this is when I was starting my Grid Series, and right before writing my concert aria How Little is Within and my Flute Concerto and Messier – a cluster of pieces that really set me down a totally different path. I’m sure I wrote about this elsewhere, but this preoccupation with specific techniques and micro-management of details was something I felt really pressured to do and I’m not sure how often the details (bow placement, muting, etc) really benefit the piece.

 I should say that I didn’t feel pressured by an external source as much as pressured by my own perceptions of what a composer “should” do: we “should” be detailed, we “should” know everything on the page, and know everything has a purpose and everything “has to be” controlled. I now think this is bunk – you don’t have to do any of that stuff. You can, but anyone who says that it is imperative to do so might just be stuck in some old-school, overly romanticized ideal of what a creative “genius” is…

 Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh… but there is always the risk of digging into the arbitrary with this stuff. I don’t think this piece has too many arbitrary features, and after listening a few more times with some detachment and distance in time, I feel that the colors that come out of these techniques often work, but constantly keep me asking “why” to myself and wondering where I might go with these things in the future.