Duration: 12-15 minutes
This is the second entry in a multi-year cycle for string quartet working through some of the difficult emotions that arise for me around the climate crisis. Where the first entry, World on Fire, addresses the cynicism and unease created by a lack of meaningful action, “how the cinder bears the seed”, for amplified string quartet and voice, focuses on the personal experience of grief, cultivating a reflective atmosphere through empty space and gentleness. The music unfolds in the time of the body, with the players’ embodied motions dictating the speed of phrases, before returning to metrical time with an incantation of growth and rebirth in the setting of Susan Stewarts’ poem “Cinder”.
Recording
The first half of the piece, performed by the Daedalus Quartet (Min-Young Kim, violin, Matilda Kaul, violin, Jessica Thompson, viola, Thomas Kraines, cello).