One live and four pre-recorded string quartets

This work was inspired by the droning of a machine, heard during an evening's walk; when studied carefully, the sound came into whirling focus on the pitch of D, sometimes fading out for a moment, then returning with new overtones and timbres. Sketches from Life (I-Angels on the Roof, scored for one live and four pre-recorded string quartets, is an exploration of D in various registers, shading and combinations. The core pitch is frequently surrounded, and at times overwhelmed, by other events-constellations of high harmonics, interwoven series of high chords, pizzicato filigrees-but it reaches its high point in a section of simple, unadorned sustained DÕs, like white paintings, whose action is achieved through imperfections of the brush, the shifting play of ambient light, or shadows cast by the observer.

In performance, the live quartet sits on the stage and the audience is surrounded by the four channels of pre-recorded sound. Each of the five quartets plays a sort of variation of the same material, sometimes blending into the whole, at others emerging with small figures or calls to other groups. A conductor indicates the passage of time by moving his/her arms clockwise.

The title emerged around Christmas-time, 1984, when I was working on the new piece. Our then two year old daughter, excited probably about the coming holiday and unable to sleep, came into the front room, sat on our laps, and, looking at a cardboard creche, said, "Angels on the roof!" I gave this benediction to the piece in the hope that it would reflect the quiet, sustained, and sometimes ethereal sounds I had imagined.