Coates: String Quartets Nos 1, 5 & 6

"The British Kreutzer Quartet, well recorded, tackles all this with apparent authority and fierce concentration. The notes are helpful, and the cover has a striking painting by the composer."
***** Five Stars (BBC Music Magazine) June 2002

Her speciality is the glissando, or slide; some of her movements (the Meditation from the Sixth Quartet, for instance) are composed entirely of them. It's a rather eerie effect, but, if you think about it, there's no reason that all music should be based on sequences of fixed pitches. Otherwise, the dominating influence here is Morton Feldman. Tending towards sparseness, the works progress unhurriedly; they have an air of meditative intimacy. But they also contain contrast: the canonic, one-movement First Quartet (1966) is blown along by the then prevailing wind of modernism; the Fifth and Sixth (1988 and 1999) create their own special atmospheres. "The Kreutzer Quartet play with extraordinary control and beauty of tone."
- Stephen Pettitt, Sunday Times (London), March 3, 2002

"Gloria Coates proves to have a distinctive string quartet voice well worth hearing.

Gloria Coates is the American composer who has been based in Munich since 1969 and in the last few years has gained an increasing profile on CD. Michael Oliver has admired her orchestral works (3/97; 2/99, both CPO) and there is a special atmosphere about her music. She has her own sound, which is difficult to acquire these days.

Much of this is to do with Coates' systematic employment of glissandos and microtones. The opening of Quartet No.5 (1988) uses diatonic material but half the quartet is tuned a quarter tone higher. At first it's excruciating but then the separate tunings seem logical, like the different rhythmic systems of Nancarrow's piano studies. All three movements of this Quartet are concerned with sounds sustained without a break. The second and third are both based on glissandos. The title of the third movement, 'In the Fifth Dimension', reflects its central sound, based on perfect fifths, familiar as open strings tuning up.

The early Quartet No.1 (1966), entitled Protestation Quartet, is quite different. This is a single movement lasting less than six minutes. The textures are varied but they are dominated by an ostinato pattern, which comes in and out of focus. All credit to cellist, Neil Heyde, for delivering this in exposed high harmonics!

Quartet No.6 (1999) is again preoccupied with continuous sounds, glissandos and quarter-tones. It's a discriminating kind of texture music but the shadow of Cage's First String Quartet 1950) falls over the mesmeric, static landscape of the last movement, 'Evanescence'. Never mind: it's a tradition worth exploring in new ways.

Committed performances, well recorded, launch a new experience in the string quartet repertoire."
- Peter Dickinson, Gramophone, May 2002

Born in Wausau, Wisconsin, Gloria Coates began composing at an early age, winning a national composition contest at the age of twelve. After earning a Masters of Music degree in composition she continued postgraduate studies in composition at Columbia University. She has been the recipient of many awards, commissions and distinctions. The music of Gloria Coates has been performed by leading soloists and ensembles, winning her an unrivalled reputation. Music on Open Strings (Symphony No.1), written in 1973, was first performed at the Warsaw Autumn of 1978 and proved to be the most widely discussed work in the Festival; her music has subsequently been heard at the Dresden Festival, New Music America 1989, Musica Viva Munich, the Passau International Festival, the Dartington Festival in England, the Montepulciano Festival Italy, the New York Microtonal Festival and Aspeckte Salzburg.