13 Episodes for String Quartet

Abstract

13 Episodes for String Quartet is an original composition with an approximate duration of 38 minutes. A dramatic narrative unfolds over a 13-movement arch form as two intervals, a tritone and a perfect fifth, are presented and explored in different harmonic and melodic contexts. As these two opposing forces compete for the foreground, a gradual shift takes place from musical material that is audibly tritone based to material that is audibly perfect fifth based.

To help realize the structure and content for this composition, I developed a computational method to generate and parse pitch-class sets based on user supplied interval content and filter criteria. I call this Binary Harmony. In this method, I generate sequences of pitches, where each dyadic adjacency in the sequence forms one of two provided pitch class-intervals. The principal musical material for each movement is generated using this computational method.