String Quartet No. 1

My first string quartet draws a lot of inspiration from early 20th century composers, which perhaps might be my favorite era of classical music. I am oft inspired by the music from Stravinsky, Nielsen, and Debussy, among others. However, the composer to have the most influence on me for the past few years is Bartok, and I believe it is evident in this work as well. I loved Bartok's use of the tritone as a tonal center, the vast and frequent changes of tempo,and the multitude of textural colors and extended techniques in his works. Most of the extended techniques are found in the second movement, an example of which is the Bartok pizzicato, which today is a commonly found and utilized articulation. But I also have some newer techniques such as aleotoric passages, originally created by composers such as Charles Ives and Henry Crowell and which saw more prominent usage through the likes of John Cage and Witold LutosAawski, are still quite new and fresh compositional tools. The third movement is much more song-like and tonal in nature than the first two movements, but really adapts Bartok's style of changing the tempo often to bridge different sections.Ultimately, I see the quartet as a microcosm of the music I want to continue writing in the future, not over-indulging in the intellectual exercises of mid-to-late 20th and 21st century classical music, while at the same time not relying on the tonal and emotional tropes of the past.