About: FOUR ETUDES for Flute Quartet was composed in Ann Arbor, in response to the high level of interest in new music performance that was aroused by the now notorious ONCE Festivals. The basic instrumentation of piccolo, two "C" flutes, and alto is shifted upwards in the final etude, when the first flute converts to second piccolo. The opening etude, a brisk allegro, concentrates on individual and pyramiding articulative patterns. The second, an adagio, concerns itself with breath control and ensemble balance, with spatial displacement complementing a subtle tendency towards klagfarbenmelodie. The third is more gesturally interactive and aggressive, but incorporates an accompanimental whir of tremolos, trills and runs which remain at the close. The final etude is a presto that comprises four linked outbursts of accumulating intensity. FOUR ETUDES for Flute Quartet was premiered in Ann Arbor in 1961 at the University of Michigan.
