INSTRUMENTATION
string quartet
DURATION
10′ 00″
PROGRAM NOTES
This suite is a jovial homage to the music of Old Vienna. It is a modern reaction to the world of Schubert, Strauss, and Schrammel – quintessential voices of Viennese culture. The lilting melodies ebb and flow, echoing the dances and folk music of years past, as they poke through an expanded harmonic texture.
The suite is constructed as an extended conversation between two duos taking place over all three movements. each pairs of instruments maintains a stylistic identity that complements, and sometimes contradicts, its counterpart. This musical dialog evolves as melodies and stylistic ideas are passed back and forth in an effort to develop agreement between all parts.
And not to be overlooked, the name of this suite is a pun on a more modern, equally seminal work of Vienna. This suite is filled with lyric melodies and lilting dances, hence the title, but it is also a not to Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite, a pivotal work of the Second Viennese School.