For the Kronos Quartet by the Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College. Additional project support was provided by the Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund.
Working on this string quartet, I found myself thinking about the Clouded Yellow. This butterfly takes part in mass migrations that are referred to in England as “clouded yellow years.” I love the image of a cloud of bright yellow butterflies, and I think the word “clouded” describes the blurred harmonies and melodies of this piece.
I imagined the opening harmony to be accordion-like, a syncopated vamp played by the viola and cello. The rhythm, a tugging three over four, flits in and out. I heard some high sighing sounds floating above all of this and gave them to the violins. It was as if I could hear the flapping of butterfly wings. I imagined I was flying around on a butterfly, gliding in the air, the air dense with moisture, like in a rainforest. It was all very free and fanciful, like a travelogue around a garden.
I tried to feel the thickness of the atmosphere and create a reverberant sound texture. The raw sound of open strings drones in accompaniment to the melody. The C, G and D strings can be heard vibrating in almost all parts of the quartet. And the C string on cello, its lowest note, is used as a pedal point throughout. While I was creating this string quartet I thought about each of the members of Kronos. Their personalities and talents were never far from my consciousness.
