en forme d’études
It is customary in etudes to deal with each technical particularity separately. This is the principle that I applied to my second quartet, on the suggestion of the musicians of the Ravel Quartet, who commissioned the work and to whom it is dedicated.
The attention of the four performers is directed successively toward tempo changes (in "Tempi"), pizzicati ("Pizzicato"), micro-intervals ("Intervalles"), harmonic sounds ("Fragment onirique"), bowing techniques ("Arco"), the latter etude being followed by a recapitulative finale ("Epilogue"). . In fact, just as in Schumann’s "Symphonic Etudes", the first page of this quartet piece consists of a theme of which the following movements are a variation.
The piece was written in Spain in autumn 1994, and premiered the year afterwards by the Ravel Quartet.
Vincent Paulet
composed in : 1994
commissioned by Quatuor Ravel
premiered in 1995, Valence, le « Bel Image », by Quatuor Ravel
duration : 11’30
publisher : Jobert
also in the repertoire of Quatuor Akilone and Quatuor Danel
Akilone string quartet, "Cordes en ballade" Festival
sound recording : Radio-France for France-Musique, 2013