BANKS BUTTERLEY MEALE WERDER Like so many string quartets, the maestoso’, but the music is hard and changes texture in a more flexible manner. pieces recorded here engage with the concrete. These blocks of sound vary The moments when the quartet comes relationship of the ensemble’s four in length – the rhythmic notation is together in rhythmically regular music are players. Some of the works continue flexible – and the performers decide the striking and climactic. the tradition of cohesive playing, and length of each block in the moment of The second seating configuration, ‘far others question that aspect of the genre’s performance. The effect is that both the away’, begins with, is sustained by, and history. start and end of notes are highly charged. ends with clouds of harmonics. If the first In live performances of Meale’s String In some cases Meale further heightens section retains some hint of progression Quartet No. 1 his direct challenge to this idea, and the fourth chord, marked in its procession of variations, this section the performers is plain to see, for the dolce, ends with a left-hand pizzicato as is totally still. Through the harmonics piece is in two sections: in the first the the bow leaves the string. The abruptness Meale traces lines of pitches that lead us performers sit in the usual configuration, of the gesture is not at all what one might across the stage, but nowhere else. These and for the second section the performers think of as dolce, but this is a piece that three sequences are labelled ‘Tropes’. The are instructed to ‘leave their chairs and questions, stretches and extends ideas. term is a reference to the cycles through take new positions toward the rear of In this first section the music is most pitches and the revolutions through the stage.’ Meale writes that: ‘This new varied in terms of texture. The opening harmonics. It is also a technical term for seating position should be as dispersed is solid. The second variation divides the a set of pitches in which the content, but as possible so that there appears to be no blocks into two (violins/viola and cello). not the order, is specified. It recalls ‘Trope’ visual contact between the players. It is The third variation divides the players into in Boulez’s Third Piano Sonata – Meale also necessary for the players to perform four, and in the score four-note chords are gave its Australian première in 1964 – in with their backs to the audience.’ connected with wavy stems, indicating which the performer chooses the order of The typical arrangement of a quartet that strict coordination is not necessary. four sections. leaves an open space for viewing the At the same time, the glissandi and wide Meale’s first quartet ends his modernist interaction of players, and is an invitation vibrato liquify the pitch, which previously period, and it is the last completed work for the audience to enter their circle. But had been as solid as the chords were before Viridian (1979). coordinated. The fourth variation brings here the aim is to ‘create a visually remote The coordination of players also comes and contemplative atmosphere.’ There are the first contrapuntal texture, which without metric notation further presses the to the fore in ’s String various challenges that come with this: to Quartet (1965). The second of two the string quartet as a forum for discursive players to react to each other to form the music; the lack of obvious coordination movements begins without barlines, and music; to the theatre of performance, according to Butterley’s direction to the the physicality of four people with four in the score heightens the coordination between the players. players, the ‘upper parts are independent instruments cueing each other visually; to of each other, but each player should close, responsive playing. Further variations explore these opening relate his part fairly closely to the cello When the players are in the first textures in greater diversity, and after part’. It is an approach to coordination configuration Meale writes a set of some time the variations themselves that Butterley, if here only briefly, shares variations. The piece begins ‘quasi begin to lose coherence, one overlapping with Meale; in 1963 Butterley performed with another. The remainder of the section in the première of Meale’s Las Alboradas, of the term ‘unfolding’, and Butterley’s and quietness. So while the which ends (save the two-bar coda) with composition ‘develops’ through constant first of the two movements is each performer working through their transformations of a single idea. The rather restrained, in the second material independently. composition is initially serial, with a the music has unfolded enough More generally, Butterley’s quartet hovers row clearly stated at the start of both to contain both the energy of between homophonic and contrapuntal movements. This, together with the the outburst with which the writing. Since both homophony and quasi-contrapuntal moments, are musical movement opens, and the counterpoint involve close working, renderings of ‘unfolding’. So too are serenity of the closing bars. the opening of the second movement the homorhythmic chords, which are Part of the work’s impact is that it is breaks away from the composition’s symmetrical in their harmonic sequence, difficult to tell where serenity, or joy, or formal preoccupations in a moment of and which also unfold, and then fold quietness begins and contemplation ends. exuberance for the performers, forming a again, in register. There is little requirement for the listener representation of the poem on which the The contrapuntal music is based on the to respond to the composition as one work draws. semi-tone, a characteristic interval that might the poem, for the music retains little The poem is Henry Vaughan’s The Butterley’s music shares with his one- of the poetry’s zeal. Revival (1650) and, like the composition, time teacher Priaulx Rainier (this interval Werder’s String Quartett No. 8 (1964) is is in two sections. With the second part is particularly clear in her work Quanta confronting. It rails against tradition, and of the poem comes spring: ‘Hark! how (1962), composed when Butterley was makes Butterley’s composition sound like his winds have chang’d their note | And studying with her). His homorhythmic idyllic pastoralism in comparison. The with warm whispers call thee out.’ This chords are reliant on thirds, an interval work’s subtitle is ‘Consort Music’, which is a realisation of the opening directive: emphasised in the second bar with a begs the question: is this a ‘whole’ or ‘“Unfold, unfold!” take in his light | Who glissando in the cello. ‘broken’ consort? The instrumentation makes thy cares more short than night.’ There is little conflict between homophony suggests the former, and the work’s Unlike Meale’s quartet, which thrives in and counterpoint, or between thirds extreme timbral variations, the latter. The the crises of its day, Butterley’s quartet and semitones, and the row is easily mixed language of the title/subtitle points takes a longer view, with Vaughan’s poem abandoned; indeed, that abandoning is to Werder’s childhood in and his as the model. In the poem light and dark part of the music’s flow. The opening, time studying in London, but, in any case, are opposed, but they are also forces linear, serial exposition, for example, his lack of regard for English music (he that are tied together through its pastoral is diffused into the first ‘chorale’ of chose to study architecture before being imagery, in which spring is a revivification homorhythmic chords and the music that interned and sent to ) suggests of winter. For Butterley this is both a emerges is not strict in any sense, even if that the subtitle is ironic. theological unfolding, and a concept that it is restricted in its colour (for we are still Although Werder ended up in Australia, is musically pregnant. in frosty winter). Butterley describes the and by 1964 had lived in Australia Since the early nineteenth century, two movements as follows: for 24 years, he remained steadfastly a single musical theme developed As the music unfolds it ‘takes independent of his neighbouring throughout a work was one meaning in’ more light and warmth, joy . His heritage came with the idea of progress, and in 2012 music’, cutting-up Walton’s concerto because after my ‘lay-off’ I Werder‑the‑critic died waiting for and saving only the tempo directions is a needed a strict discipline to get ’s musical life to enter the consistent statement, if a curious one. The the […] compositional muscles twentieth century. The composers who choice of Walton does go to the subtitle, working. he critiqued had largely side-stepped the but to nothing else in the score. The That discipline returned him to earlier philosophical and aesthetic problems collage speaks to Werder’s physical and years, when he was studying with Luigi with which Schoenberg (for example) had musical dislocation, and as chief music Dallapiccola and , and grappled. The musical result of Werder’s critic for ‘The Age’, he was politically out when he was close to Roberto Gerhard. situation is a commitment to thematicism of step with Melbourne’s musical circles. The work is broadly serial, and begins – the eighth string quartet is densely The transition he experienced moving with something of a statement of the motivic – and also to fragmentation. The from childhood in pre-war Berlin (with row, though the construction makes combination makes the motifs difficult to Schoenberg as a family friend) to rural this exposition more ambiguous than trace for any length of time, and it means clearly had a major impact on his for Butterley’s quartet. Banks uses a that ideas are abandoned as abruptly as music. His works from the 1960s are often combinatorial row, which shuffles its they erupt. volatile, and this string quartet plays out dyads with each whole-tone transposition. Much of the music inhabits the edges his circumstance in obfuscated, fractured, Banks’ time with Babbitt formed Banks’ of possibility: the bow is used with unpredictable ways. use of combinatorial methods, and his ‘excessive pressure’, and on its side; In 1972 Banks relocated from London early notebooks show him methodically in one passage the left hand plays (where he had lived for two decades) to working through the potential of this way percussive ‘thumps’; and some of the Canberra, to chair the Music Board of of working. The notebooks also show him harmonics that are indicated produce the Australia Council for the Arts, and to analysing Schoenberg’s fourth quartet, more noise than pitch. All of this is establish the electronic music studio at which uses a very similar row to the one remarkable for a composition written in the Canberra School of Music. In the early Banks chose for his quartet. 1964. years in Canberra, Banks was busy with Gerhard’s second quartet also uses a In interviews, Werder frequently refers the administration of these (and other) combinatorial row, and a form of rhythmic to painters, and his scores are visually organisations, which took the previously . Banks explicitly refers to striking. They also appear as fragmented prolific away from writing Gerhard’s quartet and its use of rhythm as as the music sounds, a collage of cuts music. ’ String Quartet one part of his ‘strict discipline’. In several and pastes. The notes of this quartet are was the only work that he composed in sections pitch and duration are locked written in Werder’s hand (sometimes clear, 1975. When it came to writing the string together, though unlike Gerhard’s quartet, often not), but many of the dynamics are quartet he took a new approach, and in Banks does not use these durations for cut from a variety of engraved scores. a letter to James Murdoch (head of the large-scale proportions, and once his Australian Music Centre), written when The tempo directions in the piece are all ‘compositional muscles’ are toned, he the composition was just finished, he moves away from the strictness of the from William Walton’s Cello Concerto. described the work’s serial basis: Given Werder’s disparaging remarks rhythm/pitch scheme. about composers who write ‘post-Walton The series has been a tough The toned/strict opposition is itself one, and I think I chose it part of the connection to Gerhard. In a in part because of Dallapiccola’s This recording was made at Aldbury letter to Michael Vyner in 1973, Banks death in February of that year, and, in Parish Church, Hertfordshire, in explains the significance of Gerhard, correspondence with Salvatore Martirano, September 2013 by Jonathan Haskell and recalls a conversation that he had Banks calls them both ‘models’, (Astounding Sounds), who also shortly before Gerhard’s death, about compositionally and personally. Through edited the recording. ‘the balance between intuition and consideration of the technical debts A 192kHz/24 bit version is also reason. The opposite sides of a coin as it Banks pays in his quartet, it is possible available, which includes the bonus were. [Gerhard] said that often a musical to hear the composition as a kind of track Don Banks’ Sequence for solo impulse could only take you so far, then tombeau to Gerhard and Dallapiccola. cello. For more information, visit you would have to call “Dr. Reason” in to The composition is in two sections, move.com.au examine what you had been doing.’ But and by the second Banks is audibly The producers of the project were a composer also needed to know when more at ease with his material. The Neil Heyde, Michael Hooper and to ‘kick him out’. Banks’ ‘strict discipline’ work is detailed, demanding, difficult Peter Sheppard Skærved. and careful, methodical construction are and dramatic, and in a letter to Liner notes by Michael Hooper. Use employed to get the piece going, and Donald Hazelwood, who lead the first of the quotes kindly permitted by the once the work’s momentum has been performance, Banks directs the players estate of Don Banks. achieved Banks works more freely. to ‘Take your vitamins A, B, C, and D, for The cover is from a sheet of blotting The debt to both Dallapiccola and the 1st section as I’d love to hear a strong, paper in the Papers of Richard Gerhard is audible in the work’s canons, rhythmic, vital sound’. Meale held in the National Library of the technique that Dallapiccola made his Australia, MS 10076, Box 48. Used own (and that were particularly important with permission. to the composer in the early 1950s, during which time Banks was his student). The photograph of the Kreutzer Quartet is by Richard Bram. Banks’ work is formed in a single movement, ‘dying out to nothing’. This is unusual for Banks, though not for P 2014 Move Records … Gerhard, whose late works are all in a single movement. If Gerhard’s music move.com.au seems an unlikely model today, given how little of his music is performed, in the early 1970s he was a major figure, and Banks’ letter to Vyner (from which the earlier quote comes) coincides with the London Sinfonietta’s performance of the complete Gerhard chamber works. This project has been assisted by the Gerhard is on Banks’ mind in 1975 Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. The Kreutzer Quartet has forged an Finnissy, Judith Weir and Hafliði prolific symphonist Gloria Coates. They enviable reputation as one of Europe’s Hallgrímsson. They have a particularly are Artists in Residence at Goldsmiths most dynamic and innovative string strong relationship to a cross-section College and at Wilton’s Music Hall in quartets. They are the dedicatees of of leading American composers, having London. Their work in collaboration with numerous works, and over many years collaborated intensively with the great art galleries has garnered much attention have forged creative partnerships George Rochberg in the last few years and large audiences, working particularly with composers including Sir Michael of his life, as well as working closely with closely with the National Portrait Gallery Tippett, David Matthews, Michael such figures as Elliott Schwartz, and the and Tate Gallery, St Ives. UNFOLD

Kreutzer Quartet

1. Don Banks: String Quartet 19’27” 2–3. Nigel Butterley: String Quartet 10’07” / 6’01” 4–5. : String Quartet No. 1 14’29” / 13’10” 6. : String Quartett No. 8 – Consort Music 9’20”

7. don Banks: Sequence for solo cello 13’32” (bonus track)

A 192kHz/24 bit version of this recording is also available, which includes the Banks’ Sequence for solo cello bonus track. For more information, visit move.com.au \ P 2014 Move Records move.com.au