Boosey & Hawkes
The idea for Parallel Worlds started with the instrumental ensemble itself, flute and string quartet. The string quartet has remained, over centuries, one of the most written for and appreciated chamber ensembles. Though the reasons for this are various, I'm sure that one of them is the natural balance between the instruments: on the one hand it's a very unified sound, but on the other it also allows for the independence of the separate colors of the individual string instruments. Add a flute to the mix and this all changes. When thinking about how to incorporate flute within the context of a string quartet I was struck by just how different a flute is then a string instrument. I mean this beyond the obvious facts of construction and sound production Both instrument groups are designed to play similar material, articulate in analogous ways, even express similar things, yet they seem to occupy different worlds. Parallel worlds. This made me think of transcription: when transferring material between two instruments is a literal note-for-note correspondence the closest relation or do other less literal transformations better capture the essence of a passage on one instrument on another? I'm sure there are many valid answers to this question, but for my piece the answer was that to try to have literal correspondence was to lose some of the essence. In Parallel Worlds, therefore, the string quartet and the flute make music in different ways, parallel ways. The piece is in four movements. In each of them this parallel-but-different relation is approached in a variety of ways. In the third movement the strings present sustained chords while the flute intones elaborate figurations. Both groups are in their element: a group of strings slowly drawing their bows can give the impression of continuous sound; while the flute can not do that, it's inherent agility allows it to execute elaborate figuration with flexibility and grace. And what makes the two groups not just different, but parallel is that while they unfold in their own way, they both are expressions of the same underlying harmonies.