'Matthews at the height of his craftsmanly powers.’   The Financial Times

Instrumentation

3 fl.3 ob.Ebcl.2 cl.bcl.(cbcl).2 bsn.cbsn - 4432 -perc(3): spring coil/4 brake drum/3 susp.cym/siz.cym/tgl/t.bells/2 glsp/4 anvil/4 gong/bell tree/vib/tam-t/lujon/handbells

Availability

Study score 0571557201 (fp) on sale, full score and parts for hire

Programme Notes

Quatrain is a ten-minute piece for wind, brass and percussion instruments. Its title describes its form: although it runs in one continuous movement, it can be divided into four sections, rather like old-fashioned symphonic form. There is an exposition, a development section in a much slower style (only six chords are spaced out over some two minutes of music here); a contrasting scherzo-type section and finally a kind of recapitulation. There is also a noticeable development in the way that the (all metal) percussion instruments are used as the piece progresses: handbells and steel tubes dominate the opening, the keyed percussion instruments are gong and prevalent in the middle of the piece, and the heavy metal returns at the end. Among the wind instruments the only unusual feature is the use of five clarinets, the composer’s intention being to strengthen the bass line by adding a contrabass clarinet. Quatrain was commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra for the opening of their 1989 season and first performed by them under Michael Tilson Thomas in San Sebastian, Spain, on August 29th 1989.

Richard Morrison (Please contact Richard Morrison to reprint).

Reviews

‘A lucid, ferociously taut construction in a single well-sectioned movement, centred upon a kind of chant.  It is ‘terrific’ in the old-fashioned sense, but it also shows Matthews at the height of his craftsmanly powers.  For all its deliberate stridency, there is no phrase in Quatrain without an exact point …’
Financial Times (David Murray), 20 September 1989
 
'Raucous, modern, tone-crunching … aggressive, in-your-face music.’
Sun-Sentinel (Lawrence A. Johnson), 31 January 2000

Quatrain

broadcast of 6 January Maida Vale Concert

BBC Radio 3 (United Kingdom)

BBC Symphony Orchestra/Michael Collins

Quatrain

No Venue (Jönköping, Sweden)

Guildhall School of Music & Drama Wind Orchestra/Peter Gane

Quatrain

BBC Radio 3 (United Kingdom)

Quatrain

No Venue (San Francisco, CA, USA)

Michael Tilson Thomas/San Francisco Symphony

Quatrain

No Venue (San Francisco, CA, USA)

Michael Tilson Thomas/San Francisco Symphony