In recent weeks, I’ve been listening to works by the composers listed on CultureTrip.com’s list “10 Young Composers Who Are Redefining Classical Music," HERE. This week I’m down to the eighth name on the list, Judd Greenstein. I plugged his name into a YouTube search, and the first piece that came up was called “Four on the Floor,” a work for string quartet.
Just as I suspected from the title, “Four on the Floor” -- the phrase used to describe a four-speed manual gearshift mounted on the floor of a motor vehicle -- Greenstein’s quartet is an energetic piece that takes off right from the start. Interestingly enough, the Google dictionary entry for the meaning of “four on the floor” included an example of its use, "a coupé with racing tires and four on the floor," and the term “coupé” seemed to suggest something a bit nostalgic (do people today still use the word “coupé”?). I mention this because the drive and energy in Greenstein’s work also seemed a bit nostalgic to me, but not in a melancholic, out-of-date way. The piece was more like a romp in an old fashioned sports car -- picture a jaunty ride along the English countryside in Matthew Crawley’s AC Six in Downton Abbey. I’m not sure that this was the actual vision Greenstein had in mind when he wrote the piece, but I did find an article HERE, written by the composer where he describes the energy and verve of the piece as follows: “Here, I ask the quartet to sound like a sextet, or perhaps an octet, through the frequent use of double stops (where players play on more than one string at once). The result is a thick texture that’s constantly moving and shifting while the staggered rhythms drive the piece forward.” If you’d like to go for a spirited and energetic spin, rev up a string quartet and try “Four on the Floor.” I think you’ll enjoy the ride.
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A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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