Feona Lee Jones – String Quartet No. 2 "Adrenaline" (2018)

"Adrenaline" is a string quartet piece titled for the dissonant driving chromatic motives that clash and glissando towards a mass of aggressive, rhythmic, and cluster-heavy patterns that unfold into an adrenaline-driven force that continues until the end. The piece is episodic in nature and loosely based on an emotional arc of a horror film. I wanted to create an experience of suspense and terror using harsh, abrasive dissonances to create a climate of anxiety by immersing the listener in an adrenaline-filled experience. For each passage, there is a particular “scene” that I have imagined in my mind for what is going on while the music is playing.

When I first began composing the piece, I limited myself to using the four notes: D, D#, E, and F, which forced me to develop the piece rhythmically and texturally instead of harmonically and melodically. I quickly branch out of this four-note limit within the first thirty seconds. The motive is a six-note phrase, which appears in various incarnations throughout the piece, but climactically in the end. There is a lot of hocketing of rhythmic motives and textural gestures throughout the piece. At the final section of the piece, the two violins bring back the beginning motive while playing rhythmic gestures back and forth creating a web of intricate rhythms while the viola and cello play a counterpoint that drives the pieces to a moment where all voices are holding a minor sonority at fortississimo.

Here's my Etude No. 4 for four notes (D#, E, F, and F3) that inspired this string quartet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwP20...

Performed by:
Violin I: Kate Stenberg
Violin II: Hrafnhildur Atladottir (Hrabba)
Viola: Elen Rose
Cello: Vanessa Ruotolo