String Quartet No.5 ‘The Time That Has Passend’ BARGIELSKI ZBIGNIEW

Classique

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After the first performance of my Fourth Quartet, in Salzburg in 1997, the artists of the excellent
Hugo Wolf Quartett approached me with the appealing proposition that I write a new quartet. Rather
problematic, however, proved to be the musicians’ delicate suggestion that I invest the work with
elements of a more pungent expression and elements of folklore – ideally Polish. That suggestion
meant that I did not immediately come to a decision, since folklore had not been (with the exception
of a few works for accordion) the object of my interest. However, in defiance of my aesthetic outlook
at that time, I decided to take up this interesting invitation and tackle what was for me a difficult
problem. Ultimately, I found a way out of this rather ambiguous situation by employing a sort of
dodge: I gave the new work a title. In a way, ‘The time that has passed’ substantiates the current to
which I referred while writing this composition. The title and the subtitles of the work’s movements,
which sound quite exotic in our day and age (there are as many as nine movements), justify the curious
marriage between the somewhat nostalgic past and a present that has not yet been particularly
well ‘assimilated’. I hope that these feuilles d’album will discharge their ‘toning’ function well. - Zbigniew Bargielski