Duration: 22 minutes
Recording: From the live performance by the Formosa Quartet on November 9, 2025 at the Concert Hall of Western Washington University Performing Arts Center, Bellingham WA. David Bernat, Jasmine Lin, violins; Matthew Cohen, viola; Deborah Pae, cello
Quartet of Trees – Score and Parts – $110.00
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Program Notes:
Quartet of Trees was composed as a love letter to trees and Pacific Northwest hiking. String instruments are built from wood of many varieties of trees that can be found in the region, including Spruce, Maple, Cedar and Alder. Each movement of the quartet examines a specific type of forest in the area that hosts some of these trees and tries to capture some of the energy or characteristics of the trees and their habitats.
The first movement is Macrophyllum Rainforest, focusing on the Big Leaf Maple and the Olympic Rainforest that it calls home. Broad chorales are juxtaposed by the energetic dance of rainfall and birdsong.
The second movement, Alpine Bonsai, references the Engelmann Spruce that one can encounter hiking in many of the region’s alpine forests. At higher elevation, the oxygen thins and the trees become smaller, gnarled, and deeply rooted, resembling natural bonsai. These qualities are respectively represented by increasingly high trills, small sul ponticello flourishes, and the insistent return of a stable stepwise bassline.
The third movement scherzo, Coastal Spruce, features sweeping gestures to mimic the dramatic bent shapes of the Sitka Spruce, able to withstand strong coastal winds. The final movement, Foothill Foray, has a flamenco influence, as the foothill forests of the Cascade Mountains contain Alder and Cedar, primarily used in the making of guitars.
-Angelique Poteat
Angelique Poteat 