String Quartet No.3
‘Desire and Separation’
(1999)
duration: 14’
GRT • 059
score available from
Australian Music
Centre
program note
This piece was
conceived purely for self–contained musical ends. But
mid–stream, the piece started to conjure up notions of
desire and separation to me, and I allowed those thoughts
to guide the completion of the piece. It is a personal
retrospective. An opportunity to take stock of what I do
and who I care for. The quartet was written without
commission after a fallow period of about 8 months, and
over June and July it offered ‘complete freedom’ to write
whatever I cared.
Many thanks to Tania Hardy-Smith and the Tarraj Quartet for
providing an opportunity to have the piece workshopped and
performed. The piece is dedicated to my partner, Marianne
Rothschild.
review
"The evening's
premiere was of Stuart Greenbaum's String Quartet No.3
(1999), whose effective and well-balanced string writing
aimed, according to its subtitle, to address Desire and
Loyalty in an Age of Abandon. Rhythmical modulations and
ostinati contributed to a successful sense of pace, ending
with a sudden shift to a texture of glissandi and
sputtering harmonics."
Jeff Pressing, The Age, December 1999