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Third String Quartet .​.​. child of Uranus, father of Zeus (1982)

by Thomas Oboe Lee

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Third String Quartet ...child of Uranus, father of Zeus 12:44

about

The Third String Quartet was composed in 1982 and won First Prize at the 1983 Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards for the best chamber music work by an American composer.

The work was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and plays on the quartet's given name in that Kronos is the Greek name for Saturn. Hence, the Quartet's subtitle, "... child of Uranus, father of Zeus."

The work has no program as such, but it was, according to the composer, "conceived and written with regard to the many myths associated with the god Saturn."

Its opening, marked "Barbarous, wild - almost chaotic" deals with Saturn's war-like character, but is quickly juxtaposed with more lyrical episodes, resulting in a kind of sonar-form use of contrasting themes. Indeed the "second subject" is based on one of Lee's original jazz tunes.

A long (very long!) trill in the second violin subtly, almost imperceptibly, inserts itself into the discourse, but soon takes on prominence as a stabilizing, consonant factor. It becomes the fulcrum around which the rest of the music rotates. Eventually the semitone trill opens up into a minor third, and is ultimately re-absorbed into the full quartet texture as the opening "chaotic" material rises up around it, bringing the single-movement to its climax.

This high point, bringing back the idea of conflict and juxtaposition, is at the same time a recapitulation of the opening material of the Quartet, inverted, transposed, subtly altered.

A quiet coda - a reflective peroration - brings the Quartet to a moving and beautiful close.

Liner notes by Gunther Schuller in the original GM Recordings release.

credits

released February 11, 2018

Kronos Quartet with David Harrington, John Serba, Hank Dutt and Joan Jeanrenaud

Music by Thomas Oboe Lee

Recorded at Different Fur Recordings
San Francisco, California
June 9, 1983

Howard Johnston, audio engineer and editor

© GM Recordings, Inc. GM2007CD

YouTube Link: youtu.be/Q01wTqIjI_8

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Thomas Oboe Lee Cambridge, Massachusetts

Thomas Oboe Lee was born in China in 1945. He lived in São Paulo, Brazil, for six years before coming to the United States in 1966. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, he studied composition at the New England Conservatory and Harvard University. He has been a member of the music faculty at Boston College since 1990. ... more

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