Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra.

Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, throughout its four movements, addresses the challenge of fusing a nineteenth-century harmonic language with such contemporary characteristics as quartal and unresolved seventh chords, syncopated pop rhythms, modern percussion instruments, and rare modulations. The first movement introduces the relationship that will exist between the soloists and the orchestra throughout the work. This prayer-like movement opens with shimmering passages in the orchestra that lead to a sedately pulsing motive. A series of musical sighs throughout the movement gives it a dark and downtrodden character. The second movement is a serenade in D-flat major, cast at a brisk walking tempo. The choice of key was made in an effort to achieve an ebullient richness in the string passages through their particular overtones. Here there is a traditional concerto-like interplay between the soloists and orchestra, often passing the music back and forth with very little overlapping. These first and second movements are grouped together as a pair distinct from the last two movements. The third movement is an intermezzo with a distinctly darker, more popular and contemporary character, serving to introduce the last and largest movement of the work. The virtuosity of the dark c-minor scherzo passages in the final movement frame both a Passacaglia and a section entitled Dream Rounds in the center of the movement. The arching structure returns to the bravura of the opening scherzo and the movement ends with evocations of the first movement's series of musical sighs.D.M.A.; Ph.D.Communication and the ArtsMusicUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/124475/2/3138216.pd