Remembering

for string quartet

(2013) Duration: 6:00

PURCHASE

Premiere performance by the University of Lousiville Graduate String Quartet:
Mat Madonia & Amelia Lant – violins, Samuel Meade – viola, Ian Schroeder – cello 

In December 2012, a Louisville businessman contacted me about composing a string work as a surprise birthday gift for his wife, who was to turn sixty in June 2013. The result was Remembering for string quartet.

As it happened, my sixtieth birthday was during the 2013 summer, and I couldn't help reflecting and reviewing my own life while I was composing this work. Those reflections and the work itself contain a wide range of feelings, from pleasant reminiscences and intensely joyful memories to more subdued, somber thoughts. To me, Remembering is not a work for a sweet-sixteen birthday, but one of deeper reflection on a life long-lived, in which gratitude and regret live side by side, accommodating one another, comfortable in their familiarity.

A detail of the commission was that the businessman's two children had both played viola, and he wanted the viola featured in some way. The viola begins the work and leads periodically throughout.

– Steve Rouse