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String Quartet II

Åke Parmerud

Programme notes

String Quartet II refers to a piece I realized in 1988 titled Stråkkvartett [String Quartet]. At that point of time digital audio sampling was a very new thing and was about to change the world of electronic music. I decided to see what I could do with this new technology to create a piece from the instrumental tradition but with a new twist. The idea of mimicking acoustic instruments using only mathematical calculations has been on the road map for a while, since the mid 1990s, when Yamaha released the first physical modeling synth. However, the results since then have been less than impressive… until now. I recently came across a physical modeling synth by Swedish company Reason called Friction which impressed me. Yes, physical modeling allows for creating realistic impressions of acoustic instruments, but it also allows for various ways of changing the behavior of acoustic properties. I felt this was an opportunity to once more explore a new way of using the “classical” form of the string quartet in the weird and wonderful world of digital magic. The last 10 seconds of this piece uses the last 10 seconds of my first “string quartet” from 1988.

[i-25]


String Quartet II was realized in 2021 at the composer’s studio in Gothenburg (Sweden) and premiered on September 30, 2021 at the Mehrzwecksaal of the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien in Vienna (Austria) as part of the 4th Echoes Around Me festival produced by The Acousmatic Project. String Quartet II was awarded the 2nd Prize ex æquo in the 14th Destellos Electroacoustic Composition Competition (Mar del Plata, Argentina, 2022).

Premiere

  • September 30, 2021, Echoes Around Me 2021: Parmerud, Ensemble Hybrid Voices, Armando Balice, Mehrzwecksaal — Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Vienna (Austria)

Awards

  • Composer(s): Åke Parmerud
  • Year of composition: 2021
  • Duration: 8:39
  • Instrumentation: multichannel fixed medium
  • Publisher(s): Ymx média
  • ISRC: CAD502510026