String Quartet No. 1

In a trend we see with Les Mirages de la Chair and Kaleidoscopic Aphorisms, the First String Quartet, "In signo di Gratitudine per le Passioni" (In Gratitude for the Passions), Purdy continued with his foray into the High Modern style. While we still hear traces of his Late Romantic aesthetics and rhetoric, the First Quartet has more in common with the work of Bartok or Elliott Carter than with the Romantics.
The linear writing is based on Interval Repertoire where each instrument's line is built out of a unique set of intervals. Thus, the first violin plays only perfect fourths and minor sixths, the second violin only Tritones and minor Sevenths, the Viola only Major Thirds, Major Sixths and Major Sevenths and the Cello, Minor Thirds and Perfect Fifths.
The mode centers on the three transpositions of the Hungarian Octatonic and related variants.
The Harmony is weighted toward the All Interval Tetrachord, although a variety of seventh and ninth chords and occasional quartal and secondal harmonies appear.
Purdy also makes use of an unconventional tuning system. Instead of the more typical Equitempered scale used in Western Music, he uses Werckmeister's 1691 temperament. This gives the music a subtly sad, yet passionate sound.

Purdy had long wanted to write a string quartet, since the late nineties, and had struggled repeatedly with it's technical challenges, notably the small ensemble and the relative lack of contrast in timbre. Many previous attempts he judged inadequate. Building upon that experience and further study he finally made a series of breakthroughs that led to the First Quartet.