THREE STRING QUARTETS

Jeffrey Stadelman

New England String Quartet

OVERVIEW

Composer Jeffrey Stadelman presents three string quartets on Navona Records, each offering distinct perspectives on his career and versatile style of composition. Performed by the New England String Quartet, these works illustrate the composer’s intense, lyrical, and sensuous modes of expression.

Seraphita (Canons), the composer’s most recent work on this album, is a nine- movement canonic elaboration of the tune from the first song of Arnold Schoenberg’s Four Lieder, Op. 22 (1917), which began with the composer writing digital tools to gauge the harmonic potential of the melody. The nine movements treat the material in different ways by transforming its lyrical subject in clearly audible ways, most importantly through classical imitation techniques.

One of the composer’s few programmatic pieces, Eastland, was prompted by the tragic story of the 1915 Eastland disaster, in which a passenger steamship capsized in the Chicago River, drowning hundreds. This is an expressively straightforward piece that “aims to take its sardonic attitude to existential extremes,” using long glissandos and other devices to suggest the implacability, banality and blindness of fate.

String Quartet No. 2 was written in 1988 while Stadelman was under the tutelage of American composer Donald Martino at Harvard. This three-movement work moves from a consonant and lyrical opening to a section of variations, and finally to a precipitous and virtuosic whirlwind. The piece won the Blodgett Quartet Competition at Harvard in the year of its composition, and was performed in 1988 at Paine Hall in Cambridge by the New World String Quartet.

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HIGHLIGHTS

Stadelman’s music is described as “bold, dramatic and compelling” (Audiophile Audition), and “immediately arresting and instantly commands attention” (MusicWeb International)

His works have been performed by numerous ensembles, including the New England String Quartet, the New York New Music Ensemble, Boston Musica Viva, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, Het Trio, 175 East Ensemble (New Zealand), Earplay, and the New World and Cassatt string quartets

Stadelman has received commissions and invitations for compositions from the Fromm Foundation and Boston Musica Viva, Nuove Sincronie, Concert Artists Guild, Trio Italiano Contemporaneo, Phantom Arts, Bernhard Wambach, Elizabeth McNutt, Jon Nelson and UW-Madison, among others. Grants and awards include those from Meet the Composer, Harvard University, Friends and Enemies of New Music, and the Darmstadt Summer Courses

Stadelman received his Ph.D. in Music from Harvard University, where his principal teachers were Milton Babbitt, Earl Kim, Donald Martino, and Stephen Mosko

A variety of Stadelman’s orchestral, instrumental, and electroacoustic works are available on MESSENGER (NV5896) on Navona Records

This album features the New England String Quartet, ensemble-in-residence at Harvard University's Dudley House

This album includes a web-application which features liner, notes, composer and performer biographies, and more

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ALSO ON NAVONA RECORDS

MESSENGER (NV5896)

Jeffrey Stadelman

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