Update Title: E14CBB60-A6FF-4EA2-B393-4BC46675E116

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COMMISSIONED BY THE BRENTANO STRING QUARTET AND THE FOLLOWING CO-COMMISSIONERS:
CARAMOOR CENTER FOR THE ARTS, KATONAH, NEW YORK;
CARNEGIE HALL, NEW YORK, NEW YORK;
CHAMBER MUSIC NORTHWEST, PORTLAND, OREGON;
CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN,
WITH SUPPORT FROM RUTH RATTNER AND ANN AND NORMAN KATZ;
ONSTAGE AT CONNECTICUT COLLEGE, NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT;
DA CAMERA OF HOUSTON, TEXAS;
FONTANA CHAMBER ARTS, KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN;
HOPKINS CENTER, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE;
KRANNERT CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, URBANA;
LUTHER COLLEGE, DECORAH, IOWA;
ROCKPORT MUSIC, ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS;
JUDITH AND DAVID FALK FOR SALT BAY CHAMBERFEST, DAMARISCOTTA, MAINE;
SAN FRANCISCO PERFORMANCES, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA;
AND SPIVEY HALL AT CLAYTON STATE UNIVERSITY, MORROW, GEORGIA.

From the Fifth Book was commissioned by the Brentano String Quartet for their Fragments Project, in celebration of their 20th Anniversary Season. The commissioned composers were
asked to write a movement for quartet reflecting upon a fragmentary work by some of the most
celebrated quartet composers including Mozart, Schubert and Schoenberg. I selected what
appears to be a completed first movement to an unfinished quartet by Shostakovich conceived
between his 8th and 9th quartets. One of the aspects of the Shostakovich quartets I most admire is
that despite their abstract character, with nearly all their movements bearing nothing more than
very plain tempo markings, the music almost always communicates a sense of disquiet and
emotional preoccupation that far transcends the relative straightforwardness of the thematic
content. Further, Shostakovich’s structures, while equally plainspoken and rooted in the
traditions of the string quartet, have a stream-of-consciousness character that I have chosen to
follow in my piece.
It is a curious challenge to be asked to write a fragment in response to a fragment. My title,
From the Fifth Book, is intended as a suggestion that this piece may, at some point, become the
first movement of a complete string quartet entitled The Fifth Book (by which I mean my fifth
book of madrigals). Or, it may remain, as Shostakovich’s piece, a promise of something that
never came to be.

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