''Still Movement with Hymn'' is a composition for
piano quartet A piano quartet is a chamber music composition for piano and three other instruments, or a musical ensemble comprising such instruments. Those other instruments are usually a string trio consisting of a violin, viola and cello.
Piano quartets for ...
by the American composer
Aaron Jay Kernis
Aaron Jay Kernis (born January 15, 1960) is a Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy Award-winning American composer serving as a member of the Yale School of Music faculty. Kernis spent 15 years as the music advisor to the Minnesota Orchestra and as Direct ...
. It was composed in 1993 and was given its world premiere at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
on November 11, 1993. It is dedicated to the memory of the composer
Stephen Albert
Stephen Joel Albert (6 February 1941 – 27 December 1992) was an American composer. He is best known for his Symphony No. 1 ''RiverRun'' (1983) and Cello Concerto (1990) written for Yo-Yo Ma, both of which won a Pulitzer Prize for Music. He d ...
, who died unexpectedly in 1992.
The piece was a finalist for the 1994
Pulitzer Prize for Music
The Pulitzer Prize for Music is one of seven Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually in Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first given in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year, and this was eventually converted i ...
.
Composition
''Still Movement with Hymn'' has a duration of roughly 25 minutes and is composed in a single slow
movement
Movement may refer to:
Common uses
* Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece
* Motion, commonly referred to as movement
Arts, entertainment, and media
Literature
* "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...
divided into three sections. Kernis described the composition in the score program note, writing:
Instrumentation
The work is scored for a piano quartet consisting of
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
,
viola
The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...
,
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...
, and
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
.
Reception
Reviewing a recording of the work, the music critic Joshua Kosman of the ''
San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...
'' called it "a potent elegy for piano and strings" and wrote, "The score itself, with its anguished climaxes and interludes of serene mourning, is exquisite."
References
{{Authority control
Compositions by Aaron Jay Kernis
1993 compositions
Compositions for piano quartet
Music with dedications