Potassium (2000) 15'
Commissioner: Kronos Quartet
First Performer: Kronos Quartet, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, San Francisco, 16 March 2001
Instrumentation: string quartet + electronics + amp
Special Features:
Program note:
Throughout PotassiumI use a distortion unit or fuzz box on the string quartet to create a mysterious and charged sound. Potassiumbegins with major and minor chords sliding in and out of tune –– very simple harmonies that, with the use of electronics and glissandos, become fogged up like a blur, making you unsure of what you are hearing. This music eventually breaks out into a section which I call in the score, “Frenzied Soul Explosion,” with a wilder sliding accompanied by attacking chords. In some part of my brain I must have known that in the Periodic Table of Elements, Potassiumis listed as the symbol K. Potassiumis dedicated to the Kronos Quartet.
—Michael Gordon
Potassiumwas commissioned by the Kronos Quartet.
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