Arco Naturale for string quartet - Score & parts

Arco Naturale is Markus Fagerudd's souvenir from Italy, strongly influenced by the island Capri. The baths and palaces of Tiberius stimulated composer's imagination. Fagerudd describes the work in the following way: “From soil, you can find a potsherd, soon another one, then a third one. Shortly after you will have a complete vase glued together, singing with its fractured voice chorals and cantilena bits of present and past daily life stories of man.”

The 10-minutes long work in one movement is like a puzzle collected from the pieces of a vase: in the beginning the music flows long-lined coloured by choral fragments. In the middle, it evolves thicker in ornamentation. In the end, the music returns into timeless, non-pulsating interpretation, before silent fading into the soil of Capri, waiting to be found by archaeologists.

The quartet was premiered by Cable! quartet in Musica Nova festival in Helsinki.

Version for string orchestra is available for hire from the publisher.