A Room of Her Own (2020)
c. 30 minutes
for string quartet
I. Web
II. Epigraph
III. Anon
IV. Incandescence
Commissioned by the University of Adelaide with the support of the John Bishop Memorial Commission.
First performance by the Australian String Quartet at Elder Hall, October 17th 2020.
'A Room of Her Own' was the winner of the APRA/AMCOS and Australian Music Centre Art Music Award for Chamber Work of the Year in 2021, along with the Albert H Maggs Prize for Composition.
The work was recorded and released by the Australian String Quartet in 2021 as part of their Australian Anthologies project.
The third movement, Anon, is available as a standalone work for String Quartet.
c. 30 minutes
for string quartet
I. Web
II. Epigraph
III. Anon
IV. Incandescence
Commissioned by the University of Adelaide with the support of the John Bishop Memorial Commission.
First performance by the Australian String Quartet at Elder Hall, October 17th 2020.
'A Room of Her Own' was the winner of the APRA/AMCOS and Australian Music Centre Art Music Award for Chamber Work of the Year in 2021, along with the Albert H Maggs Prize for Composition.
The work was recorded and released by the Australian String Quartet in 2021 as part of their Australian Anthologies project.
The third movement, Anon, is available as a standalone work for String Quartet.
A Room of Her Own is my essay and personal reflection upon the requirements for prosperous creativity. In it, I explore the delicate balance between the realm of the creator and the work being created, taking inspiration from quotes gathered from Virginia Woolf’s seminal text ‘A Room of One’s Own’.
The work is in four movements, played attacca (without pause):
I. Web "...imaginative work (is) like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners."
II. Epigraph
III. Anon "I would venture to guess that Anon... was often a woman."
IV. Incandescence "The mind of an artist, in order to achieve the prodigious effort of freeing whole and entire the work that is in (her), must be incandescent.... There must be no obstacle in it."
The music opens with Web, a fragile meditation performed by solo cello, accompanied by an off-stage ‘choir’ of bowed crotales. In Epigraph, the off-stage performers return and introduce us to musical themes by composers Margaret Sutherland, Clara Schumann and Rebecca Clarke. These themes then become the primary musical material for Anon, an aggressive and hostile, but occasionally tender homage to forgotten voices of the musical canon. A poignant viola solo announces Incandescence: a hymn to self-awareness, acceptance, and vulnerability.
© Anne Cawrse, 2020
The work is in four movements, played attacca (without pause):
I. Web "...imaginative work (is) like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners."
II. Epigraph
III. Anon "I would venture to guess that Anon... was often a woman."
IV. Incandescence "The mind of an artist, in order to achieve the prodigious effort of freeing whole and entire the work that is in (her), must be incandescent.... There must be no obstacle in it."
The music opens with Web, a fragile meditation performed by solo cello, accompanied by an off-stage ‘choir’ of bowed crotales. In Epigraph, the off-stage performers return and introduce us to musical themes by composers Margaret Sutherland, Clara Schumann and Rebecca Clarke. These themes then become the primary musical material for Anon, an aggressive and hostile, but occasionally tender homage to forgotten voices of the musical canon. A poignant viola solo announces Incandescence: a hymn to self-awareness, acceptance, and vulnerability.
© Anne Cawrse, 2020
REVIEWS
"A confident, assured, and luminous string quartet'
- Judging panel, Australian Art Music Awards 2021 9Winner of Chamber Work of the Year)
"The interplay of melodic and harmonic lines makes for absorbing listening — her writing suggests conversational exchanges between instruments and the audience is implicitly invited to imagine what might be told in such exchanges.... A Room of Her Own is beguilingly beautiful and profoundly telling, and the ASQ has clearly taken it to heart."
- Chris Reid, Limelight
"Cawrse's stunning piece was the highlight of the concert and may well be her best work to date. Written in four through-composed movements and lasting around thirty minutes, it was a transfixing experience to behold, not only musically but also by way of an unexpected use of instruments and staging... A Room of Her Own is a confident, assured and incandescent string quartet that boldly sounds the call for better representation of women composers in classical music programming."
- Martin Cheney, Sharp Four Reviews
- Judging panel, Australian Art Music Awards 2021 9Winner of Chamber Work of the Year)
"The interplay of melodic and harmonic lines makes for absorbing listening — her writing suggests conversational exchanges between instruments and the audience is implicitly invited to imagine what might be told in such exchanges.... A Room of Her Own is beguilingly beautiful and profoundly telling, and the ASQ has clearly taken it to heart."
- Chris Reid, Limelight
"Cawrse's stunning piece was the highlight of the concert and may well be her best work to date. Written in four through-composed movements and lasting around thirty minutes, it was a transfixing experience to behold, not only musically but also by way of an unexpected use of instruments and staging... A Room of Her Own is a confident, assured and incandescent string quartet that boldly sounds the call for better representation of women composers in classical music programming."
- Martin Cheney, Sharp Four Reviews