I attended the University of Kentucky Composers Concert last night – an exciting performance of new music written by UK students, graduates, and faculty. The performance represented a mishmash of musical styles and works of varying quality. Many of these works were performed for the first time, including one work written nineteen years ago!
Any attempt at reviewing the entire concert would be futile, so I will restrict my comments to a single work – Daniel Arnold’s String Quartet No. 1 (2011). This lovely work, written in an expected four-movement setting, was performed as a world premiere. As stated in the program notes, the outer movements share common melodic material, and the inner two movements do the same. Daniel achieves a wonderful sense of unity throughout the piece while simultaneously maintaining a sense of forward momentum. It is a pleasant surprise to encounter a work with solid unity but without monotony.
Throughout several of the movements, he balances dolce melodies with pizzicato gestures. Rich sonorities permeate the work through Daniel’s effective and generous changes of register and timbre. The Quartet is a certainly a well-crafted composition that I would like to hear again.
Unfortunately, the performance of this work did not match the value of the Quartet. Some really nice melodies were played but, unfortunately, were accompanied by flexibly nauseating intonation. The members of the quartet interacted as individuals – not as a cohesive group. By my observation, this appeared to be due to inconsistent levels of experience. Regardless, the Quartet is a fresh and worthy piece, one deserving of careful rehearsals and convincing performances.
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