Five Miniatures (2021)
clarinet, violin, cello
clarinet, violin, cello
Score & Parts (digital download): $25.00
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PROGRAM NOTE
After months of discarding attempts at a string quartet in Summer 2020, I asked Dr. Michael Rose, my composition teacher at Vanderbilt University, for his remedy for writer’s block. Think of someone you care about, he instructed, and begin the piece as a gift to them. I immediately thought of my grandmother, Avis Weaver Beranek, just short of her eightieth birthday at the time. She once told me that as a young girl, she and her two older siblings “ran away from home” to their great-aunt’s house (only a few miles away), and while there, Aunt Abby taught them each to play the hymn “Jesus Loves Me” in thirds on an old upright piano.
Immediately, my inspiration was set: I imagined a chorale-like opening in harmonics which would hide the hymn tune among its inner voices. Then, as the piece would progress, the hymn would be revealed (naturally, in thirds). But, even after such clarity, the piece stalled, and I turned to other projects. A year later, having graduated from Vanderbilt in the interim, I returned to the quartet as a Master’s student of John Corigliano at The Juilliard School. With his guidance, I completed the piece in December 2021.
Lasting just under fifteen minutes, this one-movement quartet pits peace against anxiety in one broad arch, a sort of “ABCB'A'” form. At the outset, the strains of a distant, celestial chorale emerge, introducing both the main melodic theme of the piece (at first, in A-flat major), and a warped, pitch-bending gesture which is motivic throughout the work.
The quartet dwells on the melodic theme until restless sixteenth notes shatter the feeling of peace. This seemingly unrelated chromatic scurrying actually outlines the first four notes of “Jesus Loves Me” before turning back on itself, palindromically repeating in nervous, non-retrogradable bouts. The falling minor-sixth from the opening is obsessively flipped on its head as disorientation ensues. A harsh, eight-note motive yelps above the fracas. The music fixates alternately on this new motive or the first four notes of the opening theme until the whole ordeal bursts at the seams, all four instruments reaching a searing unison climax on a high D.
Suddenly still, the piece transitions to its middle section by briefly returning to the opening theme. A new landscape with familiar material emerges: the warped oscillations of the beginning merge with fluttering runs and harmonics, recalling the celestial chorale while developing the second section’s yelping motive, now slowed to near-pulselessness. A low, legato song blossoms over the decelerated texture, drawing to a complete stop.
But, no sooner has stasis arrived than the cogs creak back into action. With glissandi and sixteenth notes the music reboots, revisiting the second section’s anxiety full force. This time, the hysteria consumes itself quickly and completely, burning out in one great chaotic screech.
In this moment of despair, the elusive hymn tune finally reveals itself: the viola plays “Jesus Loves Me” in thirds (just like Grandma), and the first violin sings the opening theme in celestial counterpoint. The theme is taken up by the rest, cascading forth, until it is peacefully transfixed by an otherworldly descant in the first violin. The second violin answers with the middle section’s low, legato song before one last flicker of anxiety rears its head. This nightmarish memory is duly snuffed out, and the quartet concludes as it began, warped and ethereal, evaporating on an A-flat.
—Jacob Beranek
After months of discarding attempts at a string quartet in Summer 2020, I asked Dr. Michael Rose, my composition teacher at Vanderbilt University, for his remedy for writer’s block. Think of someone you care about, he instructed, and begin the piece as a gift to them. I immediately thought of my grandmother, Avis Weaver Beranek, just short of her eightieth birthday at the time. She once told me that as a young girl, she and her two older siblings “ran away from home” to their great-aunt’s house (only a few miles away), and while there, Aunt Abby taught them each to play the hymn “Jesus Loves Me” in thirds on an old upright piano.
Immediately, my inspiration was set: I imagined a chorale-like opening in harmonics which would hide the hymn tune among its inner voices. Then, as the piece would progress, the hymn would be revealed (naturally, in thirds). But, even after such clarity, the piece stalled, and I turned to other projects. A year later, having graduated from Vanderbilt in the interim, I returned to the quartet as a Master’s student of John Corigliano at The Juilliard School. With his guidance, I completed the piece in December 2021.
Lasting just under fifteen minutes, this one-movement quartet pits peace against anxiety in one broad arch, a sort of “ABCB'A'” form. At the outset, the strains of a distant, celestial chorale emerge, introducing both the main melodic theme of the piece (at first, in A-flat major), and a warped, pitch-bending gesture which is motivic throughout the work.
The quartet dwells on the melodic theme until restless sixteenth notes shatter the feeling of peace. This seemingly unrelated chromatic scurrying actually outlines the first four notes of “Jesus Loves Me” before turning back on itself, palindromically repeating in nervous, non-retrogradable bouts. The falling minor-sixth from the opening is obsessively flipped on its head as disorientation ensues. A harsh, eight-note motive yelps above the fracas. The music fixates alternately on this new motive or the first four notes of the opening theme until the whole ordeal bursts at the seams, all four instruments reaching a searing unison climax on a high D.
Suddenly still, the piece transitions to its middle section by briefly returning to the opening theme. A new landscape with familiar material emerges: the warped oscillations of the beginning merge with fluttering runs and harmonics, recalling the celestial chorale while developing the second section’s yelping motive, now slowed to near-pulselessness. A low, legato song blossoms over the decelerated texture, drawing to a complete stop.
But, no sooner has stasis arrived than the cogs creak back into action. With glissandi and sixteenth notes the music reboots, revisiting the second section’s anxiety full force. This time, the hysteria consumes itself quickly and completely, burning out in one great chaotic screech.
In this moment of despair, the elusive hymn tune finally reveals itself: the viola plays “Jesus Loves Me” in thirds (just like Grandma), and the first violin sings the opening theme in celestial counterpoint. The theme is taken up by the rest, cascading forth, until it is peacefully transfixed by an otherworldly descant in the first violin. The second violin answers with the middle section’s low, legato song before one last flicker of anxiety rears its head. This nightmarish memory is duly snuffed out, and the quartet concludes as it began, warped and ethereal, evaporating on an A-flat.
—Jacob Beranek
