JACK SYMONDS (b. 1988)
String Quartet No. 2
I. Part One – an abnormality of growth
a. Andante amoroso
b. Scherzo I
c. Scherzo II (in imitazione) –
Trio (senza energia) –
Scherzo II (con difetti)
d. Finale I
II. Part Two – a continuity of paradoxes
a. Adagio inquieto
b. Scherzino interrotto
c. Adagio stagnante
d. Finale II
e. Finale III
CREDITS
Commissioned by the Australian String Quartet for the London season of ANAM Quartetthaus through the Australian String Quartet Richard Divall Australian Music Fund
Recorded at Iwaki Auditorium, ABC, Melbourne, Naarm, in October 2022
Australian String Quartet (2022)
Dale Barltrop – Violin I
Francesca Hiew – Violin II
Christopher Cartlidge – Viola
Michael Dahlenburg – Cello
Composed by Jack Symonds
Produced by Stephen Snelleman
Engineered & Mixed by Adele Conlin
Mastered by Alex Stinson
Artwork – Jim Tsinganos Illustration
Art Direction – Cul-de-Sac Creative
Angelina Zucco – ASQ Chief Executive
Sophie Emery ASQ Operations Manager
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Special thanks to Jack Symonds for his valued support of this release.
PROGRAM NOTES
These two movements pursue similar material from radically different perspectives. The :first begins with a wide-ranging cello melody ornamented with a quicksilver muted violin mapping out the same harmonic landscape again and again, providing most of the work’s content in embryonic form. This then calms down into a true slow movement. The ‘abnormalities’ of this Part refer to the quirk of the material growing too quickly for a ‘normal’ development of the structure, forcing the music to change into radically different forms and expressions. Scherzo I alternates violence and entropy in an unstable manner before coalescing into the strict canons of Scherzo II. The dissipation of energy in this Scherzo generates a true Trio section, struggling to regain direction. Its eventual resumption (‘with defects’) menacingly grinds the music into mechanistic repetition and dissolution. Finale I polyphonically grows the fragments of the opening cello melody in multiple directions simultaneously, eventually proliferating and accelerating out of control.
Part Two’s ‘continuity of paradoxes’ attempts to force together music built on irreconcilable differences. It begins with a dyad slowly ‘bleeding out’ into uncomfortable fragments of faster music. These become the dominant idea and prepare the way for another Scherzo, this one cut into by windows to wholly opposing material. When this spins itself to quizzical extinction, the piece finds its still, Adagio centre – but it proves too slow for ‘productive’ development. Nervous repeated-note twitches finally provide the key to opening Finale II, a do-over of Finale I from Part One but in a far slower tempo. Many of the developmental ‘problems’ of the original are given potential solutions, and the entropic and oppositional forces are reconciled. The key out of the quartet-labyrinth is a third Finale for this two-movement work, gathering together the piece’s entire material in a fast toccata which nonetheless gets stuck on loop: is it resolved, finished or simply gives up?
DURATION: c. 20 minutes (9′ + 11′)
Jack Symonds © 2022
BIOGRAPHY
Jack Symonds is a composer, conductor and pianist, and Artistic Director of Sydney Chamber Opera. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music, London under Kenneth Hesketh and at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where he received the University Medal. His stage works represent “a striking and impressive new operatic voice” (Sydney Morning Herald) and he is “one of those performers who seemingly can play anything” (Australian Book Review).
He specialises in the performance of new music, including conducting and playing major stage works by Britten, Benjamin, Janáček, Dusapin, Kurtág, Saariaho, Maxwell Davies, Kancheli, Rihm & Styles, often in their Australian premieres. He has also given the world premieres of Gyger’s Fly Away Peter & Oscar and Lucinda, Finsterer’s Antarctica (with Asko|Schönberg) & Biographica, Ricketson’s The Howling Girls and Smetanin’s Mayakovsky.
His recent performances have shown “masterly musicianship, projecting an engrossingly cogent understanding of complexities and expressive purpose” (SMH), the ability to “draw an emotional throughline so clear that every unexpected melodic or dynamic turn feels comfortable and logical” (Timeout), and is “impressive as ever at the piano, creating a vital palette of carefully gradated tone colours.” (Backtrack).
He has performed in and made work for the Holland, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne & Adelaide Festivals, Dark MOFO, Sydney Opera House, Biennale of Sydney, Carriageworks, Melbourne Recital Centre, National Gallery of Australia, among others.
Significant composition premieres include The Shape of the Earth after Patrick White’s Voss, Climbing Toward Midnight, a chamber opera re-imagining the second act of Wagner’s Parsifal, the John Bishop commission for the 2021 Adelaide Festival, a piece for New York’s JACK Quartet, the Dostoevsky opera Notes from Underground, works for the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Australian String Quartet, Ensemble Offspring, Australia Piano Quartet, cellists Patrick Murphy & Timo-Veikko Valve, vocalists Jane Sheldon, Jessica Aszodi, Mitchell Riley, Emily Edmonds & Anna Fraser, the Streeton Trio, ANAM, Phoenix Central Park, a viola d’amore concerto for BIFEM, the Composers Ensemble at Dartington where he studied with Detlev Glanert and a 2015 concert series curated around his music by Affinity Collective which included three premieres.
