Beautiful Things (2005)
for string quartet
1. curiosities
2. resilience
Commissioned by Festival Vancouver for the Smith Quartet
Duration: 10 min.
In writing Beautiful Things, I began by sketching a series of musical snapshots that explored the concept of musical beauty from multiple angles: the quirkiness of erratic fluctuations of pulse, the moment of extreme tension cutting to absolute calm, the striking sound of pitch clusters bending in and out of tune and the anticipation of a note slowly bending down to resolution. Together they came to form the basis of this two-movement work. The opening movement, "Curiosities", is a scherzo characterised by the lurching momentum of a broken metronome or wind-up toy. "resilience" is a tumultuous movement of more dramatic weight, alternating turbulent aggression with intimate reflection.
Beautiful Things was commissioned by Festival Vancouver in 2005.