Beamish’s Beethoven
Website(s) : http://www.tetraphonics.de/en/home.html
Sally Beamish’s creation, Opus California is based on the motives of the first movement of Beethoven’s Opus 18, No. 4. She shows how a composer creates her own musical vision from the original piece.
Biography
Founded in 1994, Tetraphonics advocates a performance style that refers to and furthers the original tonal intention of Adolphe Sax. Steffen Hass, Elmar Frey, Volker Ax and Noah Bedrin focus on reflective, detailed interpretations of music ranging from Bach or Mozart to that of today’s contemporary composers, thereby pushing the boundaries of the saxophone’s versatility. The quartet uses instruments and mouthpieces similar to Sax’s original design to achieve a balanced, flexible and nuanced tone-quality that can recall the strength of brasswinds, the softness of the strings, or the sonority of the human voice. Tetraphonics takes this tradition and develops it further in a contemporary context, demonstrating the potential of and challenging preconceived ideas of how the saxophone can sound.
More information
What is the result of creating a work for string quartet based on motives from another string quartet by another composer and then adapting it for saxophone quartet? – Opus California written by Sally Beamish. Motives from the first movement of Beethoven’s string quartet, Opus 18, No. 4 were used to create four exciting and beautiful movements. The character of Opus California is based on Beamish’s experiences at a festival in California and reflects her warm memories there. This project gives insight into the process of composition based on an earlier work by another composer. The first movement of the quartet by Beethoven will be performed after the Beamish to allow the listener to attempt to recall the motives and show how a composer creates from them her own unique musical vision.