Dances on a Ground
Instrumentation: string quartet
Duration: 6'
Date of Composition: 2009
Premiere: The Smith Quartet. 27 February 2009. Artrix, Bromsgrove
Availability: Score and parts available for purchase, ref Y248
Programme Note
Having made considerable progress with a march for string quartet, I also responded to a request from a piano-teacher friend of mine who wanted a ground-bass piece for beginners. The task immediately captured my imagination, but the piano writing quickly became far too tricky, and certainly too awkward for one pair of hands. I thought it might work better for organ, or indeed for string quartet.I abandoned the march, and transferred the 36 bars of ground-bass material to string quartet – it was considerably reworked and extended, but the kernel remained the beginner’s piano piece. After an unassuming start in which the first violin struggles to make an entrance, the treble lines become increasingly unhinged, leading to the eventual termination of the 9 bar ground-bass theme.
© 2009 Morgan Hayes
Reviews
… Morgan Hayes's punchy little Dances on a Ground …
Geoff Brown The Times, 14
January 2010
The Wu String Quartet caught the capering, anarchic energy of Morgan Hayes's Dances on a Ground very well.
Ivan Hewett, The Daily
Telegraph, 14 Jan 2010
The evening's other component was provided by the Wu Quartet - a capable ensemble that brought a stealthy humour and a teasing sense of anti-climax to Morgan Hayes's Dances on a Ground (2009).
Richard Whitehouse,
Classicalsource.com
For further information about Morgan
Hayes and his works,
please e-mail Richard Bullen richard@stainer.co.uk
