Wooden Bodies is a snapshot of a decade of contemporary creativity within the string quartet genre and celebrates the Malva Quartet’s appetite for the new and unusual – for novel ways in which the ‘wooden bodies’ of the ensemble, both human and instrumental, might converse, argue, interact and celebrate.
The Malva String Quartet is definitely one the most exciting string quartets in Sweden and their driving force is curiosity. ‘We play music that we are passion-ate about and we want to provide high quality and intensely communicative musical experiences.’ Karin Rehnqvist’s The Riddle is a single-movement work that threads a typically simple, folk-like melody on a journey through the quartet’s varied expressive capabilities. ‘I try to find ideas that are simple but have complexity inside, so that you can make more out of it,’the composer has said.
Tebogo Monnakgotla was nominated for the 2018 Nordic Council Music Prize. Her score Wooden Bodies from 2018 was commissioned by the Malva Quartet. It is a piece both elusive and tangible, presenting a theatrical interplay between the four ‘wooden bodies’ of the string quartet which appear to long for unification.
My Desert, My Rose by Aleksandra Vrebalovis based on the idea of individuality in a string quartet: ‘what one brings to the group, what one gives to the others and what one gets from them.’
Lo Kristenson has focused on music in circular, twisting forms that explore the minute details of resistance, energy, pressure and slow growth. Her score vridna, vågsång (the Swedish words evoke something twisty-turny along with singing waves) explores the idea of resistance in the instruments, adding vocal sounds too.
Caroline Shaw’s piece Entr’acte is structured like aMinuet & Trio, ‘riffing on the classical form but taking it a little further,’ in the composer’s words.
