String Quartet Concerto

I originally began with a simple violin concerto, but since then the idea's expanded into a concerto for string quartet, with each of the first four movements having a single quartet member as the soloist, then the fifth having all four as the soloists.

I wanted the first movement to play around with the standard intuitions on time, which is why although it's written in 3/4 (originally 6/4, then changed for clarity) you often get notes tied into neighbouring bars. It's also for that reason that you get a building until the second section (the 'Clown Dance', if you want the original title of the cannibalised piece) where everything gets switched around and becomes fluid. This continues, dragging harmony into the same fluid state, until it collapses under its own weight. Out of the wreckage, the original theme comes back, interrupted by the orchestra's final attempt at the Dance.

The other movements aren't yet finished, though all but the last two movements are started.

The second is a scherzo which contrasts a manic atonal theme against a classical relaxed theme.

The third is a dance, beginning with a stately waltz, having a much more jazz-inflected trio section.

The fourth is a slow movement, which is essentially a passacaglia or ciaconna on the La Folia theme, ending up in a fugal section which, in a similar manner to the first movement, starts tearing apart the theme until finally after much confusion, it weakly reasserts itself one final time before the movement ends like it began: In a plain wash of the home key.

Name of Piece	MP3
String Quartet Concerto

It's only just come to my attention now that the score I put up for this was all bollocksed up. I've since fixed it. Sorry about that! >.<