The Feather Quartet

Abstract

The Feather Quartet is a digital score for an improvising quartet. It is inspired by an extract from a Tove Jansson short story The Scolder from her book The Summer Book. In this extract an elderly grandmother is lying down on a quiet beach looking at a tiny piece of down caught in barbs of a plant leaf. She describes in great detail this feather and how it moves with the slight breeze. Her description evokes a sense of beauty in this minute event and draws attention to the profundity of concentrating on such small details. This profound seeking is at the heart of this piece; the musicians are instructed to seek such detail in the score, and the audience are invited into a careful listening experience that acts as a metaphor for the feather caught momentarily in the plant leaf on a deserted beach.