String Quartet No. 2
US premiere; II. In memory of Vasyl Ellan-Blakytny
Performed by The Rhythm Method (String quartet)
The second movement of Valentyn Kostenko’s String Quartet No. 2 was written in 1929 and is dedicated to the writer Vasyl Ellan-Blakytny (1894–1925), including an epigraph of his poetry (“…and above the scattered clouds — red stars, stars…”). Both composer and writer were based in Kharkiv in the 1920s: Kostenko taught at the Kharkiv Music and Drama Institute, directed Kharkiv Ukrainian radio, and from 1927–1932 headed the Association of Revolutionary Composers of Ukraine; Ellan-Blakytny was a Ukrainian revolutionary and one of the founders of the Borotbists and the literary organizations Borotba and Hart. The Rhythm Method’s violist Carrie Frey describes the movement as “mercurial, with two characters — one folk-melodic, one more madcap and frenzied.”