String Quartet No. 3 "Elegy" (1993)

Program Note

This work was inspired by the memory of a Tibetan folk dance which I came across in the late 1970’s when I was living in Qinghai Province. What I remember most about this particular dance is that started with a free-rhythm folk singing and it segued into a very rhythmic dance, over which the free-style singing continued. Although the structure of the quartet bears some resemblance to my memory of this dance, I did not attempt to recreate the dance scene. Rather, in many ways, my faint memory served as a point of departure for the composition. The materials in this work develop towards the final Larghetto section, which is an elegy in memoriam of friends recently died.

String Quartet No. 3 was written between May and September of 1993. It was co-commissioned by Lincoln Center or the Performing Arts in New York City, the University of California at Berkeley, The Ensemble Music Society of Indianapolis, the University of Iowa, the University of Colorado and the Takacs Quartet, whom gave the world premiere that fall, and to whom the work is dedicated.

这首作品的灵感来自我在上世纪七十年代末所亲睹的一个藏族舞曲。那时我在青海工作。我对这首舞曲印象最深的是它由一个节奏自由，奔放的名歌引出，不久便转入澎湃的舞蹈节奏，但节奏自由的歌唱却延续不断。这首四重奏的结构与我记忆中的舞蹈有相似之处，但我却无意重现这首舞蹈的场景；模糊的记忆反给了我创作的新起点。所有作品中的音乐元素慢慢展开，走向全曲的慢板终曲挽歌，这是为了纪念几位刚谢世的朋友。

第三弦乐四重奏作于 1993 年 5 月至 8 月间。作品由六个组织联合委约：纽约市林肯表演艺术中心、加州大学伯克利分校、印第安纳波利斯室内音乐协会、爱喔华大学、科罗拉多大学、以及 Takacs 弦乐四重奏组。该组亦于 1993 年秋季世界首演此曲。

—Bright Sheng