About the Music:
The instrumental music is based on a symmetrical motif comprised of a rising and falling melodic figure over  a pizzicato repeated note rhythm, like an isosceles triangle unfolding in time. Most of the material of the work is based on this motif. Rhythms, melodies and even dynamic patterns evolve from it although its original form is not heard until the opening of the 2nd movement. The motif and its derivations  are paired against a texture of non symetrical patterns  made of fast moving notes which only rise, only fall, or weave around a single note. The music based on the motif weaves its way through the texture of patterns and acts as a kind of inner musical narrative.
 Just as the music is made of two kinds of material,  all the instrumental music is paired with a sound environment.  The quartet music speaks from the inner world of musical gesture while the  sound environment springs from this inner musical narrative like abstract ëechoesí from the objective world.

About the Title:
The district where the Jews lived in the town of Girona [in NE Catalonia] was known as the Call.  The Jews were there for centuries before the Spanish Inquisition. The Call, as many communities of its kind, was prosperous and a center of learning and intellectual inquiry. Among other things, it was one of the seats of development of the Kabala. As time went on, persecution came and went and finally came and didnít go.  Some of the details of the persecution are tragically mirrored in the methods of persecution leading to the holocaust in Germany.  In the last years, the people were actually ësealedí, walled into their district.  They were only allowed out with armed guards and were forced to wear special clothing so that they could be identified and not confused with the rest of the population.  The once prosperous and self contained community became a prison even to the extent that food had to be brought in.  And, finally came the Inquisition and the end of the life of the Call.
 When my family and I visited Spain last summer [1998] we were struck by the emptiness and the silence of the Call.  It, for me, resonated with the inner feeling of the dark and brooding quality of my string quartet.  On returning home I reworked the computer accompaniment to include ë echoesí of human sounds.
 
ëEchoes from the Silent Call of Girona í is in three movements played without pause.
The melodic and harmonic material comes from a series of invented seven note scales.  The source for all the sound accompanying the quartet is from recorded cello sounds played by Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick and spoken and intoned phrases recorded by Joan La Barbara and I Nyoman Wenten.

-Morton Subotnick
September 1998