Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis

String Quartet No. 1: Of Episodic Nature

(2009)

Movements:
Episode I: …the calm before…
Episode II: …the storm…
Episode III: …shell shock…

7 minutes

Performed by Chris Whitley & Amy Hillis, violins; Scott Chancey, viola; Eli Weinberger, cello; at Designs In Harmony.

Recorded live on April 5, 2011 at McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada.

Score and parts available for purchase (PDF or hard copy). Send an inquiry through the Contact page.

Perusal score

click here to view perusal score online

"In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty."
—Seamus Heaney

The themes of the piece are memory and war – particularly, the fragmentary (or episodic) nature of these two loaded concepts. The concept arose while researching another chamber work based on Cretan folk dances. One of these, the "syrto", represents the Cretan freedom fighter’s calm philosophical contemplation before entering battle.

Of Episodic Nature begins at this moment of calmness and proceeds through a series of memories that incite nostalgia – a blend of distant happiness and sadness. By the end of the first episode, the mind rushes back to the present, finding ourselves in the midst of an ongoing battle. The second episode expresses the violence and confusion of war. There is a general collapse at the end of the section, and the third begins with a depiction of the smouldering remains, the calm aftermath of a battle. There is a sense of something rising from the ashes, slow and wounded. The ambiguity of the ending (superimposed ‘tonic’ and ‘dominant’ harmonies) suggests that there is no possible victor in the reality of war.