String Quartet No. 2, also known by its other title ''Company'', is a
string quartet by American composer
Philip Glass. This composition was finished in January 1983 in New York City, and was expected to be a piece of instrumental music for Fred Neumann's adaptation of
Samuel Beckett's 1979
novella with the
same name.
Composition
After withdrawing his first sketch of a string quartet in 1963, Philip Glass composed his ''String Quartet No. 2'' seventeen years after his first quartet, even though it was not initially conceived as
chamber music, but for theater. This work was composed as a result of Glass' collaboration with the
Mabou Mines
Mabou Mines is an experimental theatre company founded in 1970 and based in New York City.
Founding and history
Mabou Mines was founded by David Warrilow, Lee Breuer, Ruth Maleczech, JoAnne Akalaitis, and Philip Glass, at the house of Akalait ...
quartet, of which he married
JoAnne Akalaitis
JoAnne Akalaitis (born June 29, 1937, in Cicero, Illinois) is an avant-garde Lithuanian-American theatre director and writer. She won five Obie Awards for direction (and sustained achievement) and was founder in 1970 of the critically acclaimed M ...
, one of its members. Glass himself decided to extract the music he had written for Samuel Beckett's ''Company'', and wrote a score thought to be a concert work on its own.
Structure
This composition consists of four
movements
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 ...
and takes approximately nine minutes to perform. The movements are listed as follows:
The main
theme
Theme or themes may refer to:
* Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work
* Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos
* Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...
of this work is subjugated to
arpeggios in
minor key
In Western music, the adjectives major and minor may describe a chord, scale, or key. As such, composition, movement, section, or phrase may be referred to by its key, including whether that key is major or minor.
Intervals
Some intervals ...
s all along the four movements. All of the movements of this
monochrome
A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, monochrom ...
work are highly and closely related to each other. This composition is written for string quartet, but has been performed by
string orchestras.
Notable recordings
Notable recordings of this composition include:
References
External links
*, ReDo Quartet, 2011
{{Authority control
String quartets by Philip Glass
1983 compositions