Voyage for String Quartet
by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
String Quartet - Sheet Music

Chamber Music String Quartet

SKU: PR.144405720

Composed by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. Sws each. Premiere: South Mountain Concerts, Pittsfield, MA; Saint Lawrence String Quartet. Contemporary. Set of Score and Parts. With Standard notation. Composed 2012. 16+8+8+8+8 pages. Duration 12 minutes. Theodore Presser Company #144-40572. Published by Theodore Presser Company (PR.144405720).

ISBN 9781598064537. UPC: 680160611348. 9x12 inches.

When the family heirs to the legendary Galimir String Quartet (three sisters and a brother) gathered to commemorate the centenary birth years of these famed performers, they chose Ellen Taaffe Zwilich to commission for this honor. The composer, who has also worked professionally as a violinist, responded with a one-movement odyssey entitled Voyage, cross-breeding her own characteristic style with glimpses of Viennese waltzes and other Galimir flavor. "There is a sweet, sad lyricism to this work, a hectic discord..., some wailing and moaning, these moods alternating with dancing klezmer rhythms of Jewish wedding music that take over and make things right in the end." (Stanley Fefferman, BachTrack.com).
As I was reading about family records and perusing copies of reviews from the 1930s, I saw a picture of the Galimir Quartet.  I was struck by the beautiful bow arms and the most serious but optimistic young faces (they looked to me like teenagers) and I was almost overwhelmed by the promise, the tragedy, and the triumph represented by these gifted people.  My piece seemed to start at this moment and I let it take me on my own voyage.Formed in Vienna in 1927 (the centennial of Beethoven’s death), the young members of the Galimir Quartet were originally mentored and coached by Szymon Pullman.  By 1934 the quartet had earned an international reputation, concertizing throughout Europe and in parts of the Middle East.  In addition to their devotion to the standard repertoire, they forged significant relationships with living composers as diverse as Maurice Ravel (their recording of the Ravel String Quartet received the Grand Prix du Disque in 1937) and Alban Berg (they made the first recording of the Berg Lyric Suite in 1935). In 1936, in response to the increasingly threatening situation (Felix had won a violin audition for the Vienna Philharmonic, but was unwelcome because he was Jewish), the family left Vienna for various unfamiliar destinations: Felix and Renee (the violist) went to Palestine where they became founding members of the Palestine Philharmonic (later the Israel Philharmonic) newly established by Bronislaw Huberman.  Adrienne (the second violinist) married the noted violinist Louis Krasner and left for Boston; Marguerite (the cellist) moved with her father to Paris, from which they eventually fled across the Pyrenées, and sailed on an ocean liner from Portugal.  All four found homes in the United States.  Felix left Palestine after two years for a position with the NBC Symphony under Toscanini. Renee remained in Palestine through 1944, married, moved to Cairo, and eventually came to the U.S. by way of Holland, Israel, and Cuba.