Inevitable Rifts is currently unavailable

About this arrangement

2vln.vla.2vc string quintet - difficult - Digital Download SKU: S9.Q20011 For string quintet. Composed by John Casken. This edition: score and parts. Downloadable, Score and parts. Duration 21 minutes. Schott Music - Digital #Q20011. Published by Schott Music - Digital (S9.Q20011). Inevitable Rifts for string quintet, like Schubert’s Quintet in C, D.956, adds an extra cello to the string quartet. This undoubtedly makes for a richer sound, but what I wanted to explore was the tensions and differences created by forming an alliance between the viola and two cellos quite separate from the two violins, a rift heard at the very start with the lower instruments playing dark, pulsating chords, and the violins moving together in a slow broken cantilena. As the drama unfolds there are times when roles are reversed and also where new groupings are formed. The full quintet eventually coalesces in an extended central section based on the rocking figuration that accompanies a brief transitional dialogue for the two cellos. Inevitably, further rifts arise and the work ends with the two groups apart, although this time the violins try to emulate the pulsating chords, but even they part company at the very end. Rift, of course, also means a chasm or valley, and the placing at the beginning of the violins in a higher register with widely spaced intervals, and the viola and cellos at the bottom of their register, was a deliberate evocation of this kind of landscape. The work was commissioned by the Musiktage Mondsee Festival in Austria for Heinrich Schiff and the Rosamunde Quartet for its premiere performance on 4 September 2009. John Casken. About Digital Downloads Digital Downloads are downloadable sheet music files that can be viewed directly on your computer, tablet or mobile device. Once you download your digital sheet music, you can view and print it at home, school, or anywhere you want to make music, and you don’t have to be connected to the internet. Just purchase, download and play! PLEASE NOTE: Your Digital Download will have a watermark at the bottom of each page that will include your name, purchase date and number of copies purchased. You are only authorized to print the number of copies that you have purchased. You may not digitally distribute or print more copies than purchased for use (i.e., you may not print or digitally distribute individual copies to friends or students).