Much of the sound of my string quartet is determined by the unusual tunings of half of the instruments – the 2nd violin has all its strings tuned down a semitone, and the viola has all its strings tuned down a tone. This greatly expands the number of different pitches available to be played as open strings – unlike the conventional tuning of a quartet, this combination contains 16 unique strings. All of the piece’s five movements are in some sense explorations of the distinctive timbre of open strings.

 

I was immensely touched to be asked by Regina Hepner to write a piece for a concert in memory of her husband Leo Hepner.

TC