Beschreibung
Introduction
The Peaceable Kingdom paintings by Edward Hicks ( 1780–1849), based on a passage from the Bible ( Isaiah 11: 6-8 ), are well known. As a leading Quaker minister in Pennsylvania ( USA ), Hicks was involved in many of his congregation’s controversies, and my feeling is that he repeatedly painted these monothematic pictures—of which 62 are known to exist—to visualize the world as he wished it might be. I believe I have written this quartet in the same spirit.
In November of 2019, I interrupted work on the quartet to write a set of three piano pieces titled For Pi-hsien Chen. The sounds of the flutes must have still been on my mind as I was composing the piano music because when I returned to the quartet I realized it would be possible to transcribe the first and third piano pieces for flutes in order to frame the middle movement I had already written for this quartet.
A story relating to this middle movement : At boarding school, when I was 12, I woke up one night to the sound of strange music. I got up and walked around the dormitory seeking the music’s source. Everywhere I went it seemed to be coming from somewhere else. It was shortly after this that I first began to compose. I think I have spent my life trying to recapture this mysterious experience in my music. This work may well come closest to achieving that goal.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my thanks to Angela Firkins (at the Musikhochschule in Lübeck, who asked for this quartet ) and Peggy Russell ( at the University of Houston) for their interest and support. I am also indebted to Diane and Jan Williams and to Ann Holyoke Lehmann for their help in the preparation of this score. Richard Rieves has again provided invaluable assistance.
JPT Hamburg May 2024
Are 3051
