Quartet for Strings No.15

Thirteen years ago, while composing my Viola Concerto Op.36, I remember being totally stoked the whole time by how expressive, subtle, and fluid the whole piece seemed. Shortly after publishing the work, however, I suddenly realized the entire concerto was, in fact, an aimless, muddy mish-mash of indulgences bordering on incoherence. To this day, I consider that viola concerto hands-down the worst thing I ever composed - which is saying a lot.

As for this quartet: every second of work spent constructing it was pure torture. Banal! Simplistic! Sour progressions everywhere! (All this, despite my frequent public protestations that the whole point of my efforts has been to create 12-tone scores as lucid and simple as anything by Haydn: to prove whether Classicism and Dodecaphony can indeed inhabit the same space confortably). So I'm banking on the hope this thoroughly unsatisfying quartet may eventually become one of my favorites. Hope springs eternal!

One last note by way of acknowledgement: much as I've always mewled about Beethoven over the years, admittedly one of the most helpful pointers I've ever received came from an interview of Andrew Lloyd Weber. Sir Andrew confessed to frequently fretting incessantly over difficult passages in his works, only to finally and suddenly realize the whole problem was simply the phrasing. It's almost comical how much time I spent on this quartet - particularly in the brisk movements - going back and forth and back and forth trying to determine precisely which phrasing in various passages was the least unacceptable. So however much the work repels you, remember it could have been much, much worse.

C E Db Bb Ab B Eb D F G Gb A