In Color for tuba and string quartet

Commissioned by Bob Stewart for his album “Connections: Mind The Gap”, premiered in 2014 with PUBLIQuartet

MOVEMENTS

1. Aqua
2. The Poet
3. Purple
4. Makina
5. Red

PROGRAM NOTE

The interesting challenge with In Color was to find a blend between the unique timbre of the tuba and the strings — to find a place in the middle where these two opposing timbres could meet. When I thought about how the tuba and the quartet were going to get along, I thought immediately about color, the place in between melody and rhythm where interesting things can happen. My goal was to find a composite sound color that would be unique to this kind if ensemble.

But even with this overarching concept of blend, I also wanted the tuba to be featured as a solo part, and for Bob Stewart to bring his own improvisations to the work, which is the basis for the third movement, “The Poet”. The fourth movement, “Makina” (which is a play on the word “machine” in Spanish) broadens the spectrum, contrasting the other movements so that the concept of blend is displaced by a collective cacophony of effects. This section is a play on the metal body of the tuba and its mechanisms; in this movement both the tuba and the string quartet use extended techniques almost exclusively to depict the metal switches, pistons and wheels of an imagined mega machine.

There are many more possibilities of color that I didn’t get to. Theoretically, I could keep adding more “colors”, or movements, to the suite. This is really only a scratch on the surface of what this combination of instruments can do together.

— Jessie Montgomery

PERFORMANCE NOTES

A glossary of extended techniques used in the fourth movement is provided within the score; relevant terms are also defined in the parts.