Ramas

Seán Hanson

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String Quartet

2011

10 min.

Cello

Strings, bowed

Viola

Violin

Program Notes: Ramas was first conceived as a melody, process, and overall form the summer before leaving for Oberlin. As a teenager, I remember being particularly impressed by how The Art of Fugue had been realized in performance in many differing instrumentations, but as a composition was independent of this. I found the same idea resonant through Arvo Pärt's realizations of Fratres. In 2007, I finally set it for string quartet, and then iterated on it many times for several years, on piano, string orchestra, and eventually the version here for quartet again. Ramas ("branches", in Spanish) describes the interpretation of the cello melody as a series of short notes, offset from the length of the cello melody by one-half-beat. From the trunk of the piece come the branches, then limbs, leaves, and so forth—the shifting and shrinking overlapping of the other voices' simultaneous realization of the process of the piece.
Recording Notes: Featuring Sara Sasaki (Violin), Vijeta Sathyaraj (Violin), Jessie Yukimura (Viola), and Hallie Parkins (Cello). Recorded live at Kulas Hall, Oberlin Conservatory, April 23, 2011.