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Like the movements of my first string quartet, “Ars Mathematica,” the six movements of this work are inspired in part by paintings. The six paintings are Georges Braque’s “Girl with a Cross” (1911), Pablo Picasso’s “Man with a Pipe” (1911), Albert Gleizes’ “Woman with Animals” (1914), Juan Gris’ “Woman with a Mandolin” (1916), Jean Metzinger’s “Woman with a Fan” (1913), and Fernand Leger’s “Man with a Cane” (1920).

These paintings are also characters. Portraiture fascinates me, in that it often attempts to provide a glimpse into the inner life of the character – and, different viewers may come to different conclusions about the subject’s personality. I am particularly fascinated with portraits in which the subject’s identity seems to derive from his or her possessions or surroundings (e.g., “The Man with a Hoe,” “Girl with the Pearl Earring”, or even “Madonna of the Pomegranate”). The six movements of the quartet are my own interpretations of the six subjects’ personalities.

All of the selected paintings are in the cubist style, which lends itself to a complex depiction of the subject’s character in that multiple viewpoints are collapsed into a single image. My musical interpretations of these paintings draw on this complexity. For example, the character in GIRL WITH CROSS is not entirely pure and innocent. On the contrary, she is at times impetuous and frustrated, expresses desire or desperation – in short, she is like some of the cross-wearing girls I have known. Nevertheless, the main idea in her movement is calm and vaguely religious. In fact, I have borrowed Liszt’s “cross motive” here.

The cross motive is one of several recurring themes in the work. My goal was not simply to have a gallery of figures, but rather to create a community of personae, who interact and relate to one another. Some of course have a stronger relationship with each other (this is as it would be in any small community). The Interludes and Intermezzo reinforce the connections which exist between the movements; and, all of the movements are played without pause.

I think of the six portraits as forming the six sides of a cube – they are components of a single entity. It is to this geometric meaning of the term “face” that the title refers. One can even imagine that the faces are aspects of a single personality, that the characters are all the same human being as perceived in six different ways.

composerbiography: CarlSchimmel

Winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bearns Prize, the Lee Ettelson Award, and the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Carl Schimmel has received honors and awards from many organizations, including the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Copland House, New Music USA, and ASCAP. His works have been performed in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, Merkin Hall in New York, Severance Hall in Cleveland, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, and at other venues throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. He has received performances and commissions from the California EAR Unit, the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Da Capo Chamber Players, Lucy Shelton, the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and many others. A graduate of the Yale School of Music (MM) and Duke University (PhD), he is Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Illinois State University.