ærc quartets (2016/18) for any four bowed string instruments

Weeks, James

Dr James Weeks james.d.weeks@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Weeks, J. (2019). ærc quartets (2016/18) for any four bowed string instruments. [score]

Other Type	Composition
Online Publication Date	May 1, 2019
Publication Date	May 1, 2019
Deposit Date	Sep 11, 2023
Publicly Available Date	Sep 12, 2023
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1735171
Additional Information	ærc is the Old English word for ark, derived from the Latin arca, a chest. Here it denotes an enclosed space, perhaps of refuge or safety, certainly of intimacy. ærc quartets is derived from my ensemble piece ærc (2016), for a large number of orchestral string instruments. In that work, the players are paired, as in the ark of Noah, entering the figurative space of the work two-by-two and creating a dense polyphonic texture (a giant viol consort) from breath-like bow-strokes, each pair in rhythmic unison, before exiting in sequence. In ærc quartets only two pairs of instruments are present. The material of the pieces is almost identical to that of ærc, but I have subtracted one piece from the original eight.