Monet in Greyscale

About Monet in Greyscale

Monet in Greyscale began life as the third and final movement of my first string quartet, way back in 2009. The music in the movement was very delicate, inspired by foggy mornings along the Thames, but had an out-of- nowhere non sequitur of an ending.

That first quartet wasn’t premiered for seven years, finally receiving a performance in February of 2016 by The Argus Quartet in Los Angeles. I’d changed a lot since writing it, and was no longer convinced that the big ending worked for the movement, even if it made sense in the larger form of the piece.

My solution was to have the best of both worlds. Monet in Greyscale is the standalone-piece version of the third movement of the quartet, with the last four bars simply cut out. I’m not sure if it should be dated 2009 or 2016.