unbegun (2019) for string quartet

duration: ca 10'

written for and commissioned by the Alinde Quartett for their #Schubert200 project

first performance: November 9, 2019 - Alinde Quartett, Kammermusikabend im Refektorium des Franziskanerklosters Freystadt in Freistatt, Germany

program note:
Like all the forthcoming commissions for Alinde Quartet’s #Schubert200 project, the piece “unbegun” was inspired by the quartet’s namesake song, Schubert’s song “Alinde.”

The song depicts a man on the search for his lover, whom he awaits with ever-intensifying unease. Will she come? He calls out to her, again and again, “Alinde, Alinde!” —but will she come? The young Los Angeles-based composer Thomas Kotcheff reinterprets this sentiment for the 21st century, playing on Schubert’s original form and harmonies, in this ecstatic movement. Hear it alongside Schubert’s fiery first quartet D18, his verdant quartet No. 10 in E-flat D87, and his famously manic Quartettsatz on the first album of #Schubert200.