String Quartet No 1 ‘Winter’s Edge’

Toward
the end of his second letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul asks his young
disciple to try to visit him before winter. Reflection on this request sowed
the seeds of my quartet, and the more I thought about Paul’s life, aspects of
it such as conflict, transformation, solitude and destiny all gave rise to
musical ideas which I was then able to mould into a comprehensible single
movement work. The emotional dichotomy between the death Paul knew awaited him
(hence the urgency in his request to Timothy),and the hope for what lay beyond
that, is reflected in the musical material – at times violent, at times
contemplative, but ultimately seeking to reach higher. In the end, this work is
not a depiction of, or even a reflection on, the apostle’s life, but that is
where the music has its roots.