Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds
In early 2023, I was given the opportunity to write a 2 minute string quartet piece as part of a Guildhall collaboration with the National Gallery. Myself and a group of my peers would each choose a painting from Room 34 of gallery, featuring works by Constable, Gainsborough, and Turner, and write a piece based around the painting, with the theme of Time. I chose the hauntingly beautiful 'Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds' by John Constable, pictured below.
Read the program note and watch the performance below:
This painting grabbed me from the moment I saw it. The contrast of life and death and the wistfulness of the scene were the inspirations I took for the writing process. The subject of time is explored through how the melody progresses. As the piece moves, the melodic material shifts through the instruments of the quartet. I also used harmony as a tool to develop the theme of time; never staying in one place for long, always moving and changing. With time brings life (the stag) and death (the autumn leaves and the cenotaph) and this piece was written as a musical expression of these subjects.