String Quartet No. 4

Matteo Fargion

String Quartet No. 4 has been performed in Harrington, Montréal, Ottawa, Waterloo and Westmount…

This even shorter piece was commissioned by the New Music Indaba, a new music festival in Grahamstown, South Africa. The idea was to ask several composers to write their response to a traditional Zulu bow song, in my case one called Nguwe l’udal’inyakanyaka, as performed by Nofinishi Dywili. Mine is a very free ‘fantasy’ that treats the original quite irreverently, as a found object. I created short repeating patterns by giving the vocal line of the song (much speeded up) to the violins, while the viola and cello got the alternating note figures of the 2-note bow accompaniment. The result is more heavy metal than delicate bow song, but Nofinishi, who was in the audience, was swaying from side to side with a broad smile on her face, which pleased me immensely!

String Quartet No. 4

  • Composer(s): Matteo Fargion
  • Year of composition: 2003
  • Instrumentation: string quartet
Concerts
20 Octo 2007
8:00 pm
Série QB
FargionJohnsonNewmanTrunk
In person
Montréal (Québec)
31 Octo 2007
8:00 pm
BrahmsFargionOesterleStieglerVivier
In person
Waterloo (Ontario, Canada)
18 Apri 2008
7:30 pm
Fargion
In person Free admission
Westmount (Québec)
5 Augu 2008
2:00 pm
ButterfieldFargionKondoStiegler
In person
Ottawa (Ontario, Canada)
19 July 2016
9:00 pm
Fargion
In person
Harrington (Québec)