Quartet of Conversations

Electroacoustic Composition 4

Quartet of Conversations (Acousmatic) (2006)

Single movement of continuous sound for concrete media (loudspeakers)

This single movement acousmatic composition was realised in the composer’s home studio during 2006 from recorded excerpts taken from a workshop reading of Quartet of Daydreams for string quartet.

With the composer desperately needing a creative break from the intensive research of his doctorate studies, this acousmatic composition was initially conceived as a caveat for discussion to enhance a research presentation given on the acoustic string quartet. The slow-motion soundworld and patient form of this piece proved to be aesthetically pleasing to the composer and so the work was edited, recomposed and remixed later in 2006. The work was remastered again during 2017.

A Quartet of Conversations is composed upon varied repetition, fluidic dynamic contour and spatial displacement explored in an instinctive and structuralist manner governed by aural aesthetic, contrast and compliment (and the exigencies of creative experience). Emphasis is placed upon fluid sonic transition, symbiotic composite sounds and the focussed momentum of dynamic envelopes and textural pacing.

The loose concept for the form of the piece was to represent the sense of wasted time early career composers can often experience whilst their minimal rehearsal time is eaten away correcting small errors in the score, or worse still, seemingly endless discussions on notation that frustratingly turn out to be errors on the part of the reader. Through this experience, most composers become very economic with superfluous discourse and learn how to ‘manage’ their rehearsal time very early on in their careers. Composers often become obsessive about the performance details and legibility of their scores and parts.

A Quartet of Conversations is a patient piece with a near frozen sense of slow motion that manages to maintain goal and momentum towards the moment when music is finally produced from the instruments. All conversations (and earlier frustrations) ebb away into the textures of the score as the music finally comes into focus and the acousmatic soundworld features recognisable passages from the acoustic string quartet that have been transposed into octaves below the range of the source instruments.

Even after all these years, A Quartet of Conversations still sounds like ‘Candy for the Ear’ to the composer …

Concrete Audio:

The acousmatic studio master was conceived for multiple stereo-pair analogue diffusion (surround sound), with additional summated (central) mono and sub-bass (LFE) files.