Le motif disparu

Violin I
scordatura to (G,D,Ab and Eb)
wooden mute

Violin II
wooden mute

Viola
practice mute, wooden mute

Violoncello
wooden mute

There are words that yearn to be said yet cannot be. Le motif disparu, as the title suggests, veils a hidden monody. From the start till the end, it is not revealed to the audience. Only various multi-layered metamorphosed forms are being stated and restated in the string quartet, merged into an organic creature-like texture, which constantly searches, fails, evolves, and searches again.

I attempt to use mutes as a tool to create an active sound-producing agent which participates in the shapes of the “wooden” quality of the quartet as well as a “counterclimax” for the piece, to which the music culminates, however not the volume nor the timbre. The timbre settles onto its final form with the Bachian violin solo laying out the lamentations, in dialect with the beginning’s viola solo full of angst.