“Piano Quartet is Moravec’s first composition for piano quartet and is a unique and important contribution to that currently-neglected genre,” explains Isaac Melamed (cello), Artistic Director. “The GNPQ is the only group to have this work in their repertoire, and they feel a responsibility as part of their guiding mission to make it known to the wider public.”

Always reluctant to prescribe too much programmatic information about his music, the only thing Moravec would say about Piano Quartet before its premiere was that “all the movements begin with dissonance and slowly find their way back to consonance.”

This concept makes the work taut and cohesive, as its trajectory of search and repose is reflected throughout every large section. For example, the first movement opens with a twisting string lament, featuring long strained lines of grief that are suddenly smashed through by raucous bebopping—careening, manic, and joyful. The interchanging lines surge upward into tight, grooving rhythms before the music suddenly hushes, returning to the opening lament, now harmonized with a restful chorale rather than the clashing dissonances of the opening.

Paul Moravec, recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his Shakespeare-inspired 30-minute chamber work Tempest Fantasy, is the composer of numerous orchestral, chamber, choral, operatic, and lyric works. He has been awarded the Rome Prize Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and three awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation.

A graduate of Harvard College and Columbia University, Moravec has taught at Columbia, Dartmouth, and Hunter College and is currently a Professor in the Music Department at Adelphi University. He served as the 2013 Paul Fromm Composer-in-Residence at the American Academy in Rome and as Artist-in-Residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society.

The recording of Moravec’s Piano Quartet—the GNPQ’s first recording since 2003—marked a reinvigoration of the ensemble under the leadership of Executive Director Shawn Puller. The Quartet continues to expand its commissioning efforts and commitment to contemporary chamber music.

The recording was made at Wilson Hall, Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. The engineer was Antonino d’Urzo (University of Maryland), assisted by Graham Spice of Washington and Lee University. The producer was Grammy Award–winning pianist Genevieve Feiwen Lee, who has had a long and productive working relationship with both Moravec and the GNPQ.