NEW MUSIC TUESDAY | Composer Joseph Summer – ‘Sea Change’ String Quartets 1 & 2 [PREMIERE]

The Ulysses Quartet performing the world premiere performance of American composer Joseph Summer’s ‘Sea Change’ String Quartets No. 1 and No. 2

The Juilliard School's String Quartet-in-Residence, Ulysses Quartet performing the world premiere performance of American composer Joseph Summer’s ‘Sea Change’ String Quartets No. 1 and No. 2.

Recorded live at Morse Hall at The Juilliard School, in New York City – on the 27^th of January, 2020

"As an avid scuba diver I spend two months a year under water, mostly in the Indonesian archipelago ... I wanted to capture the essence of my littoral sojourns in a string quartet (which expanded to two quartets) and conceived of the works as a medium for my communication ..." Joseph has told The Violin Channel.

"I also wanted to do so without employing techniques that were too easily perceived as fishy, such as the use of sul ponticello, which captures the feeling of aquatic motion without effort of craft, and therefore I decided to eschew all modern techniques and restrict my strings to only those techniques available to and employed by Haydn ... No sul pont, no glissandi, no artificial harmonics, etcetera ..." he has said.

"Though the music describes specific underwater scenarios and some related adventures and misadventures that pertain to them I want the audience to be free to place their own imagery and emotions on the music."

 

ULYSSES QUARTET | JOSEPH SUMMER | 'SEA CHANGE I' STRING QUARTET NO. 1 | WORLD PREMIERE | 2020

 

ULYSSES QUARTET | JOSEPH SUMMER | 'SEA CHANGE II' STRING QUARTET NO. 2 | WORLD PREMIERE | 2020