Frenzy (originally entitled Fracturing Frenzies) is a high-energy piece with a strong emphasis on rhythm, jaunty phrasings and gritty harmonies. After a short episode of tonality and pretty tunes in (String Quartet No.2) Mondo Rondo, I felt the need to go back to my old tricks. However, it was with an altered perception of my own style, as one would feel when returning home after many years away. Everything seems so familiar, yet at the same time time changed by the intervening experience of the world.
As the name of the piece suggests, it is somewhat crazed in character, and is more in the style of (String Quartet No.1) Owhiro. It is structured in a rondo-variation form - one which I like a great deal and use frequently. I enjoy getting accustomed to a subject and then going somewhere completely different, but periodically throughout the piece revisiting the subject, each time looking for a new undiscovered facet, an unexplored perspective.
There is a great deal of contrast between the deployment of the quartet as one instrument or one mind, and the treatment of the four players as soloists, each asserting their own personalities. The piece flies by at a terrific rate, and it's all over and done with in a flash - but then I think you say more when you spend less time saying it.
