First Gift: He sinks deep 

Second Gift: To swing, swing, swing

Third Gift: Quite still, quite still

Fourth Gift: Forms of stars

Friedrich Fröbel’s ‘Gifts’ were sets of wooden educational toys for young children. Simple shapes (cubes, triangles, balls on string) could be combined in hundreds of ways, to each of which he gave evocative names. The four movements of my string quartet use some of these names, and are called ‘Gifts’ – I like the idea of a piece of music being a set of intriguing gifts to the creativity of the performers.

The First Gift (‘He sinks deep’) sees the quartet breathing as one – moving chords, scales and sharper contributions across the canvas.

The Second Gift (‘To swing, swing, swing’) is a noisy, chaotic dance which finds its way to a lounge jazz-inflected Sarabande. This moves without a break, to…

…the Third Gift (‘Quite still, quite still’). This is rich, dark music, though the two violins sometimes glisten as a pair. Our jazzy Sarabande also gradually makes its way back into the music.

In the Fourth Gift (‘Forms of stars’), the first violin plucks a vaudeville number over a static, lustrous bed of sound.

Instrumentation:

2 violins, viola & cello

Duration:

17 mins

Commission:

Commissioned by Adelphi Quartet

Performances:

29 Mar 2025
Adelphi Quartet
John Innes Conference Contre, Norwich, UK

10 Sep 2024
Adelphi Quartet
Lucerne Festival, Lukaskirche, Switzerland

 World premiere