2 mins
PREMIERE of the MONTH
A string quartet that tackles a profound topic
A QUESTION OF SCALE: The full-size cello peg in the left-hand room gives an idea of the intricacy and detail of this 1:18 scale replica of a violin workshop. The model took Cornel Schneider, a former bow restorer based in Switzerland, three years to complete. Everything in the ‘Bonsai Workshop’ is made and built from scratch, by hand and with the help of watchmaker tools. ‘Some say this story is madness; for me it is pure joy in the challenge of what my hands and eyes can create and realise,’ Schneider told The Strad.
Photo: Cornel Schneider
COMPOSER Noah Max
WORK String Quartet no.3
ARTIST Brompton Quartet
DATE 22 January 2023
PLACE Conway Hall, London, UK bit.ly/3EfxepG
Noah Max
Brompton Quartet
PHOTO OLIVIA DA COSTA
‘We
all wrestle with the question: why do bad things happen to good people?’ In his Third String Quartet, British composer Noah Max puts forth this question in the form of a dedication to his second cousin Indigo, who tragically died as an infant. In this single-movement work, the composer explains he was more adventurous than in his previous quartets: ‘It has a more poetic, through-composed feeling to it, more like a play with minuscule acts.’ It is his most rhythmically complex work to date and includes scordatura and double-stopped natural harmonics.
Max took influence from a spinning mobile placed beside Indigo’s grave. ‘It has two multicoloured circles spinning in opposite directions,’ he explains. ‘It’s a mesmeric optical effect.’ This is recreated musically using a three-note melodic cell. ‘It’s treated canonically, so you get this sense of it shimmering past itself endlessly.’
The piece is based on a simple chorale, fragments of which are used throughout. ‘It’s one big descending line,’ Max says. ‘It starts in the stratosphere, with dovetailing duets between the violins. The other players come in; the texture grows. We go from the top of the register right to the bottom, where it finally opens up into the chorale.’ There is a sense, he further explains, that when the chorale arrives, it is tragically too late. To add a ‘sombre resonance’, Max widens the ensemble’s register by having the musicians tune down their lowest string.
The string quartet genre holds a special place in Max’s heart, as he was trained as a cellist. He says that composing the work was testing at times, but that he ‘lives for those pieces that don’t give themselves to you easily’. It is also more direct than sentimental, he explains: ‘It’s always aiming towards something better, yet unapologetically dark. The Bromptons are wonderful and they won’t shy away from the subject matter.’
MAX PHOTO LAURA LAJBER. BROMPTON