1950-present String Quartets

Question 1

Name 6 string quartets ca.1940-present.

Answer 1

1. Elliott Carter: String Quartet No.1 (1951)
2. Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet No.7 in f-sharp (1960)
3. Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet No.8 in c (1960)
4. George Crumb: Black Angels for string quartet (1971)
5. Lou Harrison: String Quartet Set (1979)
6. Steve Reich: Different Trains for string quartet and tape (1988)
7. Paul Moravec: Vince & Jan, 1945 (2002)

Question 2

Piece: string quartet by Shostakovich, 7.

Answer 2

Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet No.7 in f-sharp (1960)- Dedicated to his first wife Nina Vassilyevna Varzar, who died in December 1954.

• It is Shostakovich’s shortest string quartet. It consists of three movements which are to be played attacca. The first two movements are exceptionally compact. The overall structure is strongly end-weighted, the first two movements each having a provisional feel and the finale reworking aspects of both.
• 1. Allegretto: A dance of exotic contour is played by the first violin, to which is added the sparest of chordal accompaniments. The cello introduces a second theme in the key of E-flat, to a 16th note accompaniment of repeated notes from the inner parts. The first theme re-appears in altered rhythm and the cello re-introduces the second theme, leading to a short coda.
• 2. Lento: The second violin offers a continuing accompaniment figuration in the slow movement, above which the first violin introduces a melody, to which muted viola and cello add glissandi. The same instruments open the middle section of the movement, accompanied by the second violin, while the viola briefly refers to the opening figuration in a short final section.
• 3. Allegro - Allegretto - Adagio: The last movement is in two sections. The first after an introduction is played fortissimo on muted instruments, leading the a fugue, the subject first announced by the viola, followed by the second violin, first violin, and cello, leading to a climax in which themes from the second and first movements are heard. The plucked notes of the cello lead to the second section of the movement, an f-sharp minor waltz, using a version of the fugue subject, leading to a triple rhythm version of the first theme of the opening movement. Plucked notes are followed by a final bowed F-sharp major chord, the sound of which is allowed to die away.

Question 3

Piece: string quartet by Shostakovich, 8.

Answer 3

Dmitri Shostakovich: String Quartet No.8 in c (1960)

• Written in three days, and premiered by the Beethoven Quartet.
• The piece was written shortly after two traumatic events in the life of the composer: the first presentation of debilitating muscular weakness that would eventually be diagnosed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and his reluctant joining of the Communist Party. According to the score, it is dedicated “to the victims of fascism and war”; his son, Maxim, interprets this as a reference to the victims of all totalitarianism, while his daughter Galina says that he dedicated it to himself, and that the published dedication was imposed by the Russian authorities. Shostakovich’s friend, Lev Lebedinsky, said that Shostakovich thought of the work as his epitaph and that he planned to commit suicide around this time. He created in it music that was largely autobiographical, giving the dedication an ironical twist not recognized by the Soviet authorities.
• It makes considerable use of a figure derived from his initials, DSCH, which in German notation becomes D - Es (E flat) - C - H (B natural), as well as themes from his own compositions, from the First, Fifth, and Tenth Symphonies, the First Cello Concerto, the second Piano Trio in E Minor and the opera A Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Other musical references include the funeral march from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung and the second theme from the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony.
• 1. The first movement of the quartet opens with a fugal treatment of the Shostakovich cryptogram, D - E flat - C - B natural, announced by the cello, followed by the other instruments in ascending order. This is followed by a reference to the composer’s First Symphony and two further themes, the second derived from the Fifth Symphony, the famous reply in 1937 of a Soviet artist to what he had to describe as just criticism.
• 2. The second movement, in G sharp minor, opens with a violent theme, a wild dance, derived from a secondary theme in the first movement and played by the first violin on the G string. The Shostakovich motif re-appears and a viola treatment of the theme accompanied by fierce cello chords and followed by the return of the first violin in the same material, leads to a second theme, the Jewish melody from the second Piano Trio in E minor.These elements are developed in a movement of abridged sonata-form.
• 3. The third movement Allegretto starts with the composer’s musical signature, a sinister waltz, entrusted initially to the first violin. There is a second waltz theme and then an intermittent change into duple rhythm, before a reference to the First Cello Concerto and a theme played in the higher register of the cello.
• 4. The first violin, in its lowest register, leads to the fourth movement, with the Cello Concerto theme, leading to the song Tormented by grievous bondage, played by the first violin and followed by a third theme, from the opera A Lady Macbeth in the higher range of the cello. The Cello Concerto theme is heard again and the first violin, repeating the Shostakovich monogram, leads to the final fugal movement.
• 5. The final fugal movement contains a play upon a motif also from Lady Macbeth, and ends the work in a mood of intense mourning.

Question 4

Piece: string quartet by Prokofiev, 2.

Answer 4

Sergei Prokofiev: String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 92 (1941)

• The string quartet is in three movements (Allegro sostenuto - Adagio - Allegro)
• Prokofiev, along with other Soviet artists, was evacuated from the major cities when the Nazis broke their non-aggression pact and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. During this stay in the provincial capital of the Kabardino-Balkar Autonomous SSR, Prokofiev was told by a government official to write a quartet using Kabardino-Balkar folk themes and wrote this string quartet, with themes based on folk tunes, rhythms and textures.
• While Prokofiev utilized these folk themes in his string quartet, he still retained his unique style of harmonization. The folk music character is made evident by the string quartet’s imitation of oriental plucked and percussion instruments, combined with resourceful use of sonic effects.
• 2. In the second movement, which has as opening theme a Kabardin dance, the background accompaniment attempts to imitate the playing of a Caucasian stringed instrument, the kjamantchi.

Question 5

Piece: string quartet by Carter, 1.

Answer 5

Elliott Carter: String Quartet No.1 (1951)

• The String Quartet No. 1 was a turning-point in Elliot Carter’s development, the first work in which he decided to bring together all his most advanced techniques on the largest scale, without worrying too much whether the result would be easy to play or listen to - a score as complex in its rhythmic relationships as it is uncompromising in its gritty harmonic language.
• A primary compositional technique used in the quartet is the principle of metric modulation (temporal modulation)—one for which Carter was to become particularly renowned. Although he was not the first composer to use this device he was seemingly the first to develop such complex transformations. It is said that Carter assigned to tempo the structural role that earlier composers gave to tonality.
• In its treatment of vertical pitch space, the First String Quartet falls relatively early within Carter’s development of a harmonic procedure involving sets of pitch classes. Specifically, Carter claims that he was guided by an all-interval tetrachord in the development of this work. Elsewhere he notes that this chord is “one of the two four-note groups that joins all the two-note intervals into pairs, thus allowing for the total range of interval qualities that still can be referred back to a basic chord-sound. This chord is not used at every moment in the work but occurs frequently enough, especially in important places, to function, I hope, as a formative factor.”
• The horizontal element—time—more explicitly occupies Carter’s attention in the First String Quartet. Carter’s primary means of maintaining motion while also varying that motion is a technique penned by Richard Franko Goldman as “metric modulation.” In this process the music continuously changes meters in such a way that either the subdivision of the beat or the beat itself stays the same. In the former case the tempo will change as the number of micro-pulses (which maintain their rate) within the beat change; in the latter (signaled in the score with doubled bar lines) the subdivision will change while the macro-pulse stays the same. Within the progression of modulations different voices behave as though they are in different meters as different voices either prepare, result from, or resist meter changes, not in congruence with each other. This allows Carter to move smoothly between asynchronicity and synchronicity of voices. As musicologist Joseph Kerman summarizes, “Simultaneous speeds give Carter novel possibilities of texture; successive speeds give him novel possibilities of musical movement.”
• Although the piece is laid out against the background of an almost classical four-movement sequence - Fantasia, Allegro scorrevole (a kind of scherzo), Adagio, Variations - there are only two short pauses in its 45-minute unfolding, and these occur not between, but within movements. The quartet embeds four movements in three sections, all contained between two solo cadenzas acting as bookends at each end of the quartet. The two cadenzas—the first for cello and the concluding for first violin—frame the piece conceptually. Within these bookends Carter composes four different sections, which he considers proper movements. However, the movements are not differentiated by pauses, instead bleeding into one another for an integration that pauses would only distort.
• 1. Carter begins with a jagged solo cello recitative that is only completed by the violin at the end of the quartet, as if to suggest that everything that happens in between is a gigantic parenthesis in Time. The Fantasia that emerges from the opening cello solo is constructed as a wave-like sequence of paragraphs, fluctuating in tempo, and within which the simultaneous instrumental lines themselves often seem to be unfolding at different speeds.
• 2. Suddenly this collapses into the Allegro scorrevole, a whirling continuum of thematic scraps, interrupted only by a more sustained trio-like section and the first of the work’s two pauses.
• 3. At length the Allegro scorrevole slows into the Adagio, which alternates, and later superimposes, aggressive recitative-like figures for viola and cello and remotely floating lines for the two violins.
• 4. This in turn yields to a transition of flying scales and jerky rhythms, throwing up terse figures which, after the second pause, prove to be the themes of the ensuing Variations. Recurring in different combinations and speeding up at different rates, these themes eventually evaporate, leaving the solo violin to complete the grand design, fading into the stratosphere.

Question 6

Piece: string quartet by Crumb.

Answer 6

George Crumb: Black Angels for string quartet (1971)

• Subtitled “Thirteen Images from the Dark Land,” it is a work for “electric string quartet.”
• Good vs. Evil Polarity: Throughout Black Angels, Crumb intended the piece to be about a free play between the two polarities of good and evil. He achieves this by many means including numerology, tone colour, motive, quotations, intervals, trills, electronic amplification, and distortion. The score to Black Angels is inscribed: “finished on Friday the Thirteenth, March 1970 (in tempore belli)” The date of the piece, 1970, was the height of the Vietnam war. For Crumb, this piece is essentially about good versus evil through continual allusion. He conceived the work “as a kind of parable on our troubled contemporary world.” The title of the piece, Black Angels (Thirteen Images from the Dark Land), Crumb states that “the image of the ‘black angel’ was a conventional device used by early painters to symbolize the fallen angel.” The black angel, in other words is the devil or evil in the polarity. The titles of the movements continue the good versus polarity: the fourth movement being, ‘Devil-music’ and the tenth movement, ‘God-music’. More direct allusions to the good versus evil polarity occur with Crumb’s quotations. His quotation from Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet is turned into a Renaissance style (Pavana Lachrymae). There are several references to the Latin sequence Dies Irae “Day of Wrath”. Conventional symbolisms occur with the diabolus in musica (the interval of the tritone) and the trillo di diavolo (the ‘devil’s trill’).
• Numerology: The overall structure of the piece is held together through a numerological construct of which the numbers 7 and 13 are the deciding factors. The numbers 7 and 13 representing good versus evil to Crumb and make up the palindromic design of the piece. The numbers 1, 7, and 13 are key points in the symmetrical arch form, ‘Departure, Absence, and Return’ which in themselves are allusions to rebirth and redemption. The numbers are also expressed in terms of phrase length, groupings of single tones, durations, and patterns of repetition. Crumb also draws on the numbers 7 and 13 as “an important pitch element - the ascending d#, and a and e also symbolize the fateful numbers.” Within the score there are several occurrences of chanting the numbers from one to thirteen in German, French, Russian, Hungarian, Japanese and Swahili. Of course, the date of the piece also contains several allusions to the numerology.
• Instrumentation: The piece is notable for its unconventional instrumentation, which calls for electric string instruments (often amplified acoustic instruments), crystal glasses (bowed), two suspended tam-tam gongs (both struck with a mallet and bowed with a contrabass bow), maraca, metal thimbles, metal pick (paper clip). The music uses the extremes of the instruments’ registers as well as extended techniques such as bowing on the fingerboard above the fingers and tapping the strings with thimbles. At certain points in the music, the players are even required to make sounds with their mouths and to speak. Each of the string players is also assigned a set of instruments to play throughout the piece. Some of the equipment requires specific preparation, such as the crystal glasses, which are tuned with different amounts of water.
• Stage positioning: Crumb’s score includes a diagram that places the four musicians in a box-like formation. Electric Violin II and Electric Cello are located near upstage right and upstage left, respectively, with their tam-tams between them. Electric Violin I and Electric Viola are near downstage right and downstage left, respectively, but are slightly farther apart than the other two musicians in order to allow full sight of the quartet. Violin I, Violin II and Viola have a set of crystal glasses downstage of them, while Violin I and Cello have maracas upstage of them. Each of the four musicians has a speaker next to them.
• Movements
  
  • I. Departure
    
    • 1. Threnody I. Night of the Electric Insects
    • 2. Sounds of Bones and Flutes
    • 3. Lost Bells
    • 4. Devil-music
    • 5. Danse macabre
  • II. Absence
    
    • 6. Pavana Lachrymae
    • 7. Threnody II. Black Angels!
    • 8. Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura
    • 9. Lost Bells (Echo)
  • III. Return
    
    • 10. God-music
    • 11. Ancient Voices
    • 12. Ancient Voices (Echo)
    • 13. Threnody III. Night of the Electric Insects

Question 7

Who was the Kronos Quartet?

Answer 7

The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet. Kronos specializes in new music/contemporary classical music and has a long history of commissioning new works. Over 750 works have been created for the Kronos Quartet. They have worked with many minimalist composers including John Adams, Arvo Pärt, George Crumb, Henryk Górecki, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and Kevin Volans; collaborators hail from a diversity of countries – Kaija Saariaho from Finland, Pēteris Vasks from Latvia, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh from Azerbaijan, Homayun Sakhi from Afghanistan, Victoria Vita Polevá from Ukraine and Fernando Otero, Astor Piazzolla, and Osvaldo Golijov from Argentina.

Question 8

Piece: string quartet by Reich.

Answer 8

Steve Reich: Different Trains for string quartet and tape (1988)

• a three-movement piece for string quartet and tape
• During World War II, Reich made train journeys between New York and Los Angeles to visit his parents, who had separated. Years later, he pondered the fact that, as a Jew, had he been in Europe instead of the United States at that time, he might have been travelling in Holocaust trains.
• Steve Reich’s earlier work had frequently used tape, looped and played back at different speeds. However, Different Trains was a novel experiment, using recorded speech as a source for melodies. Reich created these works by transferring his speech recordings into a digital sampling keyboard. This was one of the very first ‘classical’ works to utilize samples in melodic development.
• In each part, melodies are introduced, usually by a single instrument (viola for women and cello for men), a recording of the spoken phrase from which the melody derives is played. The melody is then developed for a while, with the instruments playing along with the recording of the phrase or part of the phrase. The music for the strings makes extensive use of paradiddles rhythms, with alternating pitches instead of alternating drum sticking. In addition to speech, the piece includes recordings of train sounds, as well as of sirens and warning bells, and prerecorded multiple lines by the string quartet, thus effectively creating four quartets out of one.
• The recorded speech that forms the basis for Different Trains is taken from interviews with people in the United States and Europe about the years leading up to, during, and immediately after World War II.
• 1. In the first movement, America — Before the War, Reich’s governess Virginia and Lawrence Davis, a Pullman porter, reminisce about train travel in the U.S. while American train sounds are heard in the background.
• 2. In the second movement, Europe — During the War, three Holocaust survivors speak about their experiences in Europe during the war, including their train trips to concentration camps. European train sounds and sirens are heard in this movement. The American train whistles are long perfect intervals of fourths and fifths, while the European train whistles are mostly short triadic shrieks.
     
     3. The third movement, After the War, features the Holocaust survivors talking about the years immediately following World War II, along with recordings of Davis and Virginia. There is a return to the American train sounds from the first movement.

Question 9

Name 11 American string quartet composers ca.1950-present.

Answer 9

• Milton Babbitt: 6 abstract densely serialistic quartets, the first of which was withdrawn (1948, 1954, 1970, 1970, 1982, 1993)
• Elliott Carter: 5 string quartets
  
  • String Quartet No.1 (1951)
  • String Quartet No.2 (1959)
  • String Quartet No.3 (1971)
  • String Quartet No.4 (1986)
  • String Quartet No.5 (1995)
• George Crumb: 1 string quartet, 1 work for string quartet
  
  • String Quartet (1954)
  • Black Angels for string quartet (1971)
• Lou Harrison (1917–2003): String Quartet Set (1979)
• Steve Reich: 3 works for string quartet
  
  • Different Trains for string quartet and tape (1988)
  • Triple Quartet for amplified string quartet (with prerecorded tape, 1998)
  • WTC 9/11 for String Quartet and Tape (2010)
• Phillip Glass: 6 numbered string quartets, 1 unnumbered string quartet, 3 works for string quartet
  
  • Two String Quartets (from the early 1960s)
  • String Quartet (1963)
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1966)
  • String Quartet No. 2 Company (1983)
  • String Quartet No. 3 Mishima (1985)
  • String Quartet No. 4 Buczak (1989)
  • String Quartet No. 5 (1991)
  • Suite from Bent for String Quartet (1997)
  • Dracula for string quartet (1998, music for the 1931 film)
  • String Quartet No.6 (2013)
• John Harbison: 4 numbered string quartets, 1 work for string quartet (1985-2002)
• Jennifer Higdon: 7 works for string quartet (1987, 1993, 1997, 2003, 2003, 2003, 2005)
• John Adams: 1 work for string quartet
  
  • John’s Book of Alleged Dances for string quartet (1994)
• John Corigliano: String Quartet (1995)
• Joan Tower: ‘Night Fields’ (1994), ‘In Memory’ (2002), ‘Incandescent’ (2003)
• Paul Moravec
  
  • Vince & Jan, 1945 for string quartet (2002)
  • Anniversary Dances for string quartet (2006)
  • Atmosfera a Villa Aurelia for string quartet (2006)

Question 10

Name 5 Russian string quartet composers ca.1950-present.

Answer 10

• Dmitri Shostakovich: 15 numbered string quartets total (all but the first 4 and 1 work for string quartet)
  
  • Two Pieces for string quartet (1931)
  • Op. 49: String Quartet No. 1 in C major (1938)
  • Op. 68: String Quartet No. 2 in A major (1944)
  • Op. 73: String Quartet No. 3 in F major (1946)
  • Op. 83: String Quartet No. 4 in D major (1949)
  • Op. 92: String Quartet No. 5 in B-flat major (1952)
  • Op. 101: String Quartet No. 6 in G major (1956)
  • Op. 108: String Quartet No. 7 in F-sharp minor (1960)
  • Op. 110: String Quartet No. 8 in C minor (1960)
  • Op. 117: String Quartet No. 9 in E-flat major (1964)
  • Op. 118: String Quartet No. 10 in A-flat major (1964)
  • Op. 122: String Quartet No. 11 in F minor (1966)
  • Op. 133: String Quartet No. 12 in D-flat major (1968)
  • Op. 138: String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat minor (1970)
  • Op. 142: String Quartet No. 14 in F-sharp major (1972–1973)
  • Op. 144: String Quartet No. 15 in E-flat minor (1974)
• Witold Lutosławski: String Quartet (1964)
• Alfred Schnittke: 4 numbered string quartets, 1 work for string quartet
  
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1966)
  • Canon in Memoriam Igor Stravinsky, for string quartet (1971)
  • String Quartet No. 2 (1981)
  • String Quartet No. 3 (1983)
  • String Quartet No. 4 (1989)
• Sofia Gubaidulina: 4 numbered string quartets, 1 work for string quartet
  
  • String Quartet No. 1 (1971)
  • String Quartet No. 2 (1987)
  • String Quartet No. 3 (1987)
  • String Quartet No. 4 with tape (1993)
  • Reflections on the theme B-A-C-H for string quartet (2002)

Question 11

Name 2 English string quartet composer ca.1950-present.

Answer 11

• Benjamin Britten: No.3 (1978) of his total 3 string quartets
• John Tavener: 4 string quartets

Question 12

Name 1 Argentinian string quartet composer ca.1950-present.

Answer 12

• Alberto Ginastera: 4 string quartets (from 1948, 1958, 1973, 1974)

Question 13

Name 1 French string quartet composer ca.1950-present.

Answer 13

Henri Dutilleux: Ainsi la nuit (‘Thus the Night’, 1976)

• The piece is based on series of studies which focus on different aspects of sound production: pizzicatos, harmonics, dynamics, contrasts, opposition of register. It is built from a single hexachord that contains the notes C♯ – G♯ – F – G – C – D, thus highlighting the intervals of fifth and major second. This chord constitutes the basis from which the whole string quartet is derived. The octatonic mode is also used extensively throughout the work.
• Ainsi la nuit displays progressive growth, a technique frequently used by Dutilleux and through which musical motifs can both recall music that was heard in earlier sections or hint at music that will be fully developed in later movements. “There’s a tendency—it’s almost entirely intuitive—not to present the theme in its definitive state at the beginning. [T]here are small cells which develop bit by bit. …This may perhaps show the influence of literature, of Proust and his notions about memory.”
• Other techniques that are typical of Dutilleux can be found in the work such as fan-shaped phrases, a modal quality reminiscent of Gregorian chant as well as the highlighting of tonal triads in an atonal context.
• The work is in 7 interrelated movements played without a break, lasting about 18 minutes.

Question 14

Name 2 German string quartet composers ca.1950-present.

Answer 14

• Karlheinz Stockhausen: Helikopter-Streichquartett for 4 helicopters & string quartet (1995)
• Hans Werner Henze: 5 string quartets (1947-1976)

Question 15

Name 1 Japanese string quartet composer ca.1950-present.

Answer 15

• Tōru Takemitsu: A Way a Lone for string quartet (1981)

Question 16

Name 1 Polish string quartet composer ca.1950-present.

Answer 16

• Krzysztof Penderecki: 3 string quartets (1960, 1968, 2008); Die Unterbrochene Gedanke (1984)

Question 17

Piece: work for string quartet by Lou Harrison.

Answer 17

Lou Harrison: String Quartet Set (1979)

• This mellow work with an air of antiquity and exoticism is an impressive and entertaining work in a diverse variety of styles.
• Harrison (b. 1927 in Portland, OR) lived to become the - grand old man of the American “West Coast Maverick” school of composers. This catch-all term refers to numerous composers from that part of the United States who in one way or another questioned and rebelled from the western-European musical tradition that was brought to their continent. Harrison’s way of doing so was to throw out the concept of harmony that developed in Europe since around 1600.
• 1. Variations on Walther von der Vogelweide’s “‘nu alrêst leb’ich mir werde”: Vogelweide (ca. 1200) was one of the best-remembered of the noble-born German poet-musicians called Minnesingers, who created some of the greatest monophonic songs of the Medieval era. The result is a flowing, lovely piece with a consistent use of modes that ensures its antique flavor. Harrison treats it in five-voice polyphony according to Renaissance practice.
• 2. Plaint: About it, Harrison says, simply, “We all complain, at least a little.” This is a dark and moody expression. The strings sound muted throughout and for the most part keep in the middle or low parts of their registers. The piece is in an ABA form; the two outer sections are monophonic, with the instruments either solo or in unison throughout. The sad melody, with a yearning leap, continues in two-part polyphony in the middle section, over rhythmic sobbing pulses in the other instruments.
• 3. Estampie: The middle movement has a title commonly found in pre-Baroque music (and is a favorite of Harrison’s). Harrison always uses it for a vigorous dance or stomping piece. The music is modal and sounds either Renaissance or near-Eastern. It is also monophonic, a single melodic line in one or more instruments accompanied by a rapid repeated note and drumming on the wood of the cello.
• 4. Rondeaux: In naming the fourth movement, Harrison adopted a Baroque term, intending to pay homage to the French composers of that era, particularly Dandrieu. He says it is his “only fully ‘harmonic’ piece in the European style.” It is a stately piece and is still strongly based on melody, being in rich four-part counterpoint.
• 5. Usul: Harrison signifies that the String Quartet Set is not exclusively European by naming the final movement “Usul.” This is a Turkish word meaning a rhythmic mode. Even so, the composer makes a European connection by pointing out that in the eighteenth century European composers were quite fond of imitating the rhythms of colors of a Turkish military band in marches. Harrison, however, evokes the gentle and stately melodic music of Turkey in single-line music, again with drumming on the bodies of the instruments.

Question 18

Piece: work for string quartet by Paul Moravec.

Answer 18

Paul Moravec: Vince & Jan, 1945 (2002)

• It was inspired by a photograph of the composer’s parents on their second or third date.
• It evokes its era with a lightly jazzy language that alludes to the popular music of the time. It was based on a passage from the wartime chestnut “I’ll Be Seeing You.” This masterly miniature conveys warm nostalgia, buoyant swing and wartime unease, but it is not a 1940’s pastiche: pizzicato figures and a hazy chord progression in the final bars give this nostalgic piece a modern edge.