JUDITH WEIR
(born 1954 in Cambridge; resides in London)

Music for 247 Strings (1981)

Music for 247 Strings by Judith Weir was composed in 1981 at the request of the British violin and piano duo of Paul Barrit and William Howard. At that time, Weir was a professor at Glasgow University whose first published work, a woodwind quintet, had appeared only six years previously. Considered one of the most exciting composers to emerge from the UK in recent years, Weir solidified her reputation in 1987 with A Night at the Chinese Opera, which has since been performed numerous times in the UK, Germany, and the US, and has been broadcast widely.

Today Weir has established herself as an eclectic and prolific composer. From early in her career, her keen interest in folklore and folk music, from her family's native Scotland to that of Iceland, India, and China, have led to a personal and original style blending the familiar and the unfamiliar; she considers it her duty as a composer to expand musical communities.

Weir's musical training, first on the oboe, then in composition, is diverse as well. Her teachers have included John Taverner, Robin Holloway, and Gunther Schuller. However, her music never sounds like that of any of her teachers or, for that matter, like a conglomeration of all of them. Characterized foremost by its satirical irony and humor, Weir's work is fabulously distinctive, without being indebted to any particular school. Her strongest influences have been from theater music or incidental music with narrative.

The request Weir received from the Barrit-Howard Duo that resulted in Music for 247 Strings, was for a piece "that would feature genuine duo-playing." In most sonatas for two instruments, although the two parts are ultimately of equal importance within the work, one instrument generally dominates at any given time, In Music for 247 Strings, the number 247 being the standard total number of strings of the violin and the piano combined, both parts are of equal importance throughout the composition.

The 10-minute work consists of ten short pieces played without a break. Overall, there is much humor-—expressed alternatively with a twinkle in the eye, mocking silence, in secrecy, with innocence, or mimicking grotesqueness. Surprises are common, and the listener is gently tickled. At the beginning of the work, amid rhythmic tightness, there is an immediately discernable musical resemblance to a clever game of 'Simon Says.' As the piece progresses, the symbiotic relationship continues but in a more complementary partnership. The listener stops trying to guess which instrument is leading and simply enjoys the combined effort.

Other notable elements are the use of reverse dynamics, which contributes to the work's quiet comical identity, and the range of the register of the three lines in Piece 4, with the violin line in the middle. In addition, there are cross rhythms in Piece 7, and whining glissandos and quarter tones in Piece 8. In the final, Piece 10, there is a strong sense of resolution. The gentle jerkiness of rhythm at the beginning of the work is long gone, and replaced with a content rumble of satisfaction.