Mysteria

This one-movement piece for string quartet was written to mark the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky's birth. The music is closely linked to the theme of death and in particular its mystical side. It is not programme music, but has some pictorial features. For example, a singing bird (bar 32), which is related to the motto of the quartet from Stravinsky's ‘The Nightingale’, and there is another garden behind the white wall. From the beginning, the repetition of the note that all the instruments gradually play symbolises the white wall of a cemetery. At the climax, this note changes to ‘g sharp’, a tritone relationship to the original note (bar 74). The end of this climax symbolises the exact moment of death, when the soul flies away (bars 85-87). After the climax, the funeral song begins, which the viola and cello play with double stops (bar 88). At the very end, after the bird's song, the image of the white wall appears again. (Elena Firsova)