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The String Quartet No. 6
was commissioned by the South Mountain Association in
memory of its former Director of Concerts, Sally Willeke,
and written for the Audubon Quartet. Composed between
July and October 1989, its four movements are closely
connected by three musical ideas, each presented at the
outset of the first movement. They are: 1) a melody
presented by viola then cello whose three motives are
extensively developed over the course of the piece, 2) a
two-pitch harmony (C and D-flat) plucked by the cello at
the outset of the piece, and 3) hymnlike melodies and
textures which are present throughout the work,
especially in the original hymn of the first movement and
in the allusion to the hymn, “Now the Day is
Over,” found at the ends of both the second and
fourth movements. Outside this complex of common
material, each movement contains its own distinctive
union of material with mood: the first movement generally
fast and agitated; the second slow and brooding; the
third very fast, with crosscutting flurries, wild
fiddling and slightly loony whimsy; and the fourth very
slow, alternating sadness with ecstasy.
The String Quartet No. 6
was premiered by the Audubon Quartet on August 25, 1990
at South Mountain in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
The String Quartet No. 1
was composed between October 1974 and March 1975 during a
sabbatical from the State University of New York at
Geneseo. Though in one movement, it divides clearly into
five sections, distinguished by their contrasting tempos
and moods.
The large opening section
introduces the principal motivic ideas and a harmonic
progression which recur throughout the work. These evolve
into themes which are developed over the course of a
series of variations, climaxed by ostinati in differing
meters derived from the work's opening. The second
section of the work continues to develop material from
the opening while introducing new elements: a C-major
triad, which dissolves into a scrape; further ostinati
derived from the opening; and interrupting flurries of
short note values. The third section, a scherzo, serves
to introduce the idea of the quartet as an assemblage of
infernal fiddles, fiddling against the various ostinati
derived from the quartet's opening. The fourth section is
an arioso in which the first violin's sustained melody is
first supported by harmonies developed from the
progression found in the opening section, then by a
ground derived from the flurries of the second section.
Sustained melody, ground and ostinati converge to form
both the climax of the work and the conclusion of the
fourth section. The concluding section reintroduces
elements of fiddling which, combined with other elements
of the work, bring the quartet back to its beginning
statement interrupted by chords and a final struggle
between the tonal and non-tonal elements of the work.
The String Quartet No. 1
was written for the Esterhazy Quartet and was first
performed by them on February 21, 1976 in Whitmore Hall
of the University of Missouri-Columbia.
The String Quartet No. 2
was composed for the most part in June 1979 while I was
staying in New York City. Revision of the New York
sketches took place in July and the ink score was
completed in August. The premiere, which took place on
April 7, 1980, at the University of Missouri-Columbia,
was performed by the Esterhazy Quartet to whom it is
dedicated.
The work is split into four
movements, all of which in their thematic content
intersect, coexist, and otherwise influence each other to
form a whole of disparate yet related movements.
The first movement introduces fixed
successions of intervals and durations, bits and pieces
of which are explored in all four movements. The second
whimsically juxtaposes rhythmic patterns that are
somewhat out of kilter with each other and many of which
are distortions of rhythms associated with American
popular music. The third movement, a slow song, explores
in a totally new emotional context a four-note figure
derived from the second movement. The figure functions as
a counterpoint to an extended melody begun by the first
violin, which alternates with a second body of material
cast in A-flat major. As the two kinds of material merge,
the character of the melodic writing becomes increasingly
agitated. After an interruption by A-flat major triads,
the movement closes quietly with allusions to its
opening. The last movement aspires to perpetual motion,
but is interrupted by the appearance of material
developed from the earlier movements. Throughout the
entire quartet, the pitches A, D and G#/Ab act to varying
degrees as points of tonal orientation.
— J.W.
James Willey (b.
1939, Lynn, MA) began composing at an early age He
attended the Eastman School of Music where he studied
composition with Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. Willey
later attended the Tanglewood Music Center where he
studied with Gunther Schuller. The recipient of three
National Endowment for the Arts Awards, his works have
been performed by the Baltimore Symphony, the Rochester
and Buffalo Philharmonic orchestras, the Seattle
Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the Minnesota
Orchestra, the Esterhazy Quartet, the Audubon Quartet,
the Dorian Quintet, Collage, the Society for New Music
and the Twentieth Century Consort. His Sonata for Horn
and Piano was the 1990 winner of the International Horn
Society's annual composition competition and his String
Quartet No. 6 was a semi-finalist in the 1991 Kennedy
Center Friedheim Awards. Willey's A Millennial Boogie was
premiered in 1999 as part of a “Dance Mix” by
conductor David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony. James
Willey is currently Distinguished Teaching Professor of
Music at the State University of New York at Geneseo.
The Esterhazy Quartet takes its
name from Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy, the
eighteenth-century patron of the composer generally
considered to be the father of the string quartet —
Franz Joseph Haydn. Throughout its distinguished career
it has delighted audiences on three continents, from the
Haydn Festspiele in Austria to the Banff Centre for the
Arts in Canada, to the Mozarteum in Buenos Aires. Critics
have praised the Quartet for its intelligence,
refinement, warmth of sound, and “velvety palette of
tonal colors.” The Esterhazy Quartet has appeared at
several important music festivals in the United States
and abroad, including the Western Arts Festival, the
Texas Music Festival and the International Chamber Music
Festival of Para in Belem, Brazil. National Public Radio
has frequently featured the Quartet on its broadcasts,
including the highly acclaimed “Hear America
First” and “Quartessence” series, and in
live broadcasts from WGBH in Boston on “Classical
Performances.”
Since its inception more than three
decades ago, the Esterhazy Quartet has been
Quartet-in-Residence at the University of
Missouri-Columbia. As a musical ambassador for the
University, the Quartet performs around the world and
seeks to promote the advancement of the string quartet
art form through master classes and workshops with young
performers and through collaborations with contemporary
composers.
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