Bushra El-Turk

Composer

Eating Clouds for String Quartet

SM-000198106
Alternative title Eating Clouds
ComposerBushra El-Turk
Genre Classical / Contemporary
Instrumentation Violin, Viola, Cello
Scored forQuartet
Type of scoreFull score
Duration 9'0"
Difficulty Difficult
Year of composition 2006
Description:
Eating Clouds is a baby's view from a moving carry cot. How it might familiarise the clouds and abstract shapes and prints of everyday objects
into its most essential needs and desires. It is comprised of three movements.

I wanted to write a moody, quick texture-changing piece that suddenly alternates between the bold and fiery, the subtle and delicate gestures
to the puckish and cautious moments.

First movement is based on the note sequence - B flat-E flat-B natural-A natural (of which the equivalent German designations constitute the
initials of my first name.)

Second movement contains two strata - long lines that gradually metamorphose into various chords in the lower stratum and natural harmonics in the stratosphere. It is tutti glissandi which means all strings glide gradually just before their next note.

Third movement is highly chromatic and scuttery. It is based on a minor 2nd above and below a fundamental note.


This piece was finalist at the International Aberdeen Music Prize and was premiered by members of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in April 2007.

Upload date: 03 Feb 2014

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