Uploaded April 2010 | Updated September 2026, 23 hours ago
The THIRD QUARTET is my sixth work using micro-intervals and my last to use quarter-tones. The more I worked with quarter-tones the more I realized that they provided a rather too-inflexible division of the octave. Now Im calling for quarter- and sixth-tones mixed. It was a curiously satisfying piece to write. Its a commonplace to describe sections of a piece as having written themselves when work was going at its best. But the whole of the quartet seemed something granted me rather than something Id invented or uncovered. My role seemed essentially that of amanuensis: to keep my mind open, follow it where it wanted to go, and record its trip. When it was finished, I saw that what had gone onto the page was a pretty conclusive survey, summing up, and dismissal, of what Id been doing up till then.
I came to a use of microtones not by whim, or because of an intellectual decision, nor from a desire to be epatant, but of necessity rather, indeed, against my better judgment: What composer wants to add still another obstacle to performance? I had known for a long time, of course, of Haba and Carillo and later of Vincentino, Yasser, the electronics people and Partch but their example was tangential to the music I was, and am, interested in and had done nothing to recommend my following them. It was only after I came to use microtones that I discovered that a goodly number of composers around my age were finding themselves compelled to the same thng. --
Ezra Simms
The composition of Ezra Simms THIRD QUARTET was made possible by a Guggenheim and a commission from the Endicott Fund. The composition was begun in Roxbury, Massachusetts, continued in New York and San Francisco, and finished in Tokyo. It is dedicated to the Lenox Quartet, which gave it its first performance in Carnegie Recital Hall in 1965.
Ezra Simms was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and stuied at Mills College in Oakland with Darius Milhaud and Leon Kirchner.
The THIRD QUARTET is my sixth work using micro-intervals and my last to use quarter-tones. The more I worked with quarter-tones the more I realized that they provided a rather too-inflexible division of the octave. Now Im calling for quarter- and sixth-tones mixed. It was a curiously satisfying piece to write. Its a commonplace to describe sections of a piece as having written themselves when work was going at its best. But the whole of the quartet seemed something granted me rather than something Id invented or uncovered. My role seemed essentially that of amanuensis: to keep my mind open, follow it where it wanted to go, and record its trip. When it was finished, I saw that what had gone onto the page was a pretty conclusive survey, summing up, and dismissal, of what Id been doing up till then.
I came to a use of microtones not by whim, or because of an intellectual decision, nor from a desire to be epatant, but of necessity rather, indeed, against my better judgment: What composer wants to add still another obstacle to performance? I had known for a long time, of course, of Haba and Carillo and later of Vincentino, Yasser, the electronics people and Partch but their example was tangential to the music I was, and am, interested in and had done nothing to recommend my following them. It was only after I came to use microtones that I discovered that a goodly number of composers around my age were finding themselves compelled to the same thng. --
Ezra Simms
The composition of Ezra Simms THIRD QUARTET was made possible by a Guggenheim and a commission from the Endicott Fund. The composition was begun in Roxbury, Massachusetts, continued in New York and San Francisco, and finished in Tokyo. It is dedicated to the Lenox Quartet, which gave it its first performance in Carnegie Recital Hall in 1965.
Ezra Simms was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and stuied at Mills College in Oakland with Darius Milhaud and Leon Kirchner.
![René Koering, Quatuor No 2nd mouvement, largo [second movement of two]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jbpD3mJL9O8/mqdefault.jpg "René Koering, Quatuor No 2nd mouvement, largo [second movement of two]
On dit et on répète à tous les compositeurs depuis Beethoven que la forme du quatuor à cordes est la chose la plus difficile (les vrais pervers, après vous avoir asséné cette vérité historique, vous font savoir que la vraie difficulté est le trio à cordes mais que ce divertissement nest réservé quà la catégorie quatre étoiles des compositeurs).
Je pense au contraire quil y a dans laustère (et brillante) gymnastique de quatuor une première « facilité* qui est celle des vois intermédiaires (situées entre le dessus et la basse) nécessaires à tout épanouissement. Et que ces deux voix (voies), tellement indispensables à la plénitude du discours ne sont vraiment exploitables que dans la formule du quatuor à cordes. En effet, le répartitions sur lambitus sont parfaites entre le do grave du violoncelle et lut ultime du violon, en passant par le second violon et le bienheureux alto. De là extrême confort du compositeur, libéré du handicap des deux mains au piano ou des innombrables pièges des jeux de cache cache à lorchestre. Là, tout est clair, chaque note est entendue et la virtuosité est lenfant de Bohême dont rêve limpétrant.
Cest pourquoi je me pose souvent le question des multiples et inutiles séductions ajoutées à la musique, depuis le piano jusquà lorchestres « gurreliederien », il existe, je le sais, le pur raffinement de la beauté « quartetisante ». Alors pourquoi hésiter ?
Parce quil est difficil dimaginer un audimat que satisfasse un éditeur, même passionné de quatuor, marié à un compositeur fécond seulement dans ce domaine. La carrière internationale et triomphante de Georges Onslow est là pous nous le rappeler. (Nata : Onslow est lauteur de 35 quatuors et 34 quintettes dans la continuité rare et appréciable de Schubert.)
Finalement je conclus, à titre personnel, que le quatuor à cordes simpose sans discussion possible au moment où la nostalgie du pays perdue ou égaré sempare de moi et que remonter à la surface, aborder les plages aux franges de lexistence, ne peut se faire quà la condition « quartettane ».
René Koering")
