String Quartet No. 5: The Train to Improbable Places

Year Composed:	2023
Instrumentation:	2 violins, viola, cello
Duration	9 minutes

Program Notes

During the fall of 2022, I took the train from Toronto to London (Ontario). Between periods of dozing, and periods of idle wakefulness spent watching the scenery rush by, I sketched a series of musical ideas. Most of these ended up on the cutting room floor, but I did preserve one idea: a rapid, sparkling figure in the violins that I later dubbed the 'train motive.'

At once virtuosic and slightly dream-like, my Fifth String Quartet (cast in a single movement) opens ith a rigorous development of this train motive -- complete with modal twists and turns, inversions, and a lyrical augmentation that forms a secondary theme of sorts -- before veering off into stranger pastures. A handful of locomotive associations are present, like the 'doppler-effect' glissandos, or the chugging accelerations that may remind some listeners of Honegger's Pacific 231. But there are also incongruous elements, such as quotations from the scherzo movement of Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 2 (of which my 'train motive' rhythmically resembles), and a climactic stretch that improbably evokes a flash mob of Celtic fiddlers.

The subtitle is an homage to P.G. Bell's middle-grade fantasy series he Train to Impossible Places. Although my music bears little relation to the author's narrative, the playful image conjured by the title was impossible to resist. As for my substitution of the word improbable in place of impossible, I can only say that I was intrigued by the possibility of connecting (via train, of course) string of fantastical sonic landscapes that were unlikely to be found anywhere in ordinary experience...unlikely, but not impossible.

I am grateful to June Goldsmith and Music in the Morning for commissioning this work, and to the fabulous Viano String Quartet, whose members bravely gave me license to write in a way that was child-like, virtuosic, and joyous.

Commissions and Awards

• Commissioned by June Goldsmith & Music in the Morning for the Viano String Quartet.

Performances

• March 14-23, 2023 - Viano String Quartet. Vancouver Academy of Music, Vancouver.
• April 29, 2023 - Viano String Quartet. Von Kuster Hall, University of Western Ontario, London, ON.
• August 2, 2023 - Viano String Quartet. Ottawa Chamberfest, Ottawa, ON.
• September 1, 2023 - Viano String Quartet. Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Banff, AB.
• September 15, 2023 - Viano String Quartet. Von Kuster Hall, University of Western Ontario, London, ON.