So fulfilling — the recording of my three string quartets, on the Acis label, wonderfully played by the Terra String Quartet. Who, while we were editing the recording, thrilled me by winning the Naumburg Chamber Music Competition, the most prestigious American honor for young ensembles.
Official release date: August 7. But you can hear the music now, and download the CD booklet and our press release (with scores and more info available below, and special downloads for reviewers and radio stations available on an Acis press page).
As I wrote in the CD liner notes: “Three string quartets, written at different times and for different reasons, but which come together as if they were meant to be heard in a single flow.”
Click to hear each piece:
Quartet for Anne (2001)
A surprise birthday present for my wife, Anne Midgette. Released as a single in February, played on classical radio, available on streaming services. (5 minutes)
The music sounds so warm, and full of love, as Terra plays it.
The Remembered Song (2018)
A spiritual piece (see below), released as a single June 6, available on streaming services. We’ll promote it to classical radio. (8 minutes)
The piece, with its dream of paradise, seems to dissolve into mist, with Terra playing on the edge of silence.
Mahler Variations (2004)
Variations on a Mahler theme, a narrative of my life, moving through many musical styles, with tributes to musical works and other things I love. (27 minutes)
The Mahler theme — the opening of the last movement of the Third Symphony — creates a hush around it, when it starts, in my arrangement for string quartet.
The music in the piece goes through many changes, but silences recur in it, culminating near the end in the “John Cage variation” (as I call it, with quiet affection, because the musicians don’t play at all).
This recording, and everything involved with it, was such a warm collaboration.
To quote the quartet, whose violinists had taken one of the courses I taught at Juilliard:
Throughout this process, Greg went from a beloved professor to respected colleague and friend.
It is no wonder that his music is so poignant and can speak to so many, given the incredibly rich life he has lived.
More on the quartets
Quartet for Anne
I brought musicians to our home to play this for Anne. She was surprised!
In the music, I wove together pieces of mine that Anne knew, enriching them with new rhythms and textures, the instruments crossing each other, changing the color of the music as it flows.
The Remembered Song
A song we may have known in heaven, remembered first in fragments.
The song stays with us as we go through episodes in life, waking, walking, running, war and mourning, drowsiness, and sleep. In our sleep, as if we’re dreaming, we hear the song complete, with the musicians tapping on their instruments, as if it were a quiet dance.
Mahler Variations
A Mahler theme — from the last movement of the Third Symphony — goes through 22 variations, on a journey whose meaning comes only with the quiet final chord.
This piece is like a narrative of my life. Each variation has its own musical style, paying tribute to things I love — films, nature, and, above all music, ranging from Elvis to Webern.