STRING QUARTET No 3
FromtheKimberley
2014
Updated 2025
Full Score
Commissioned for Musica Viva Australia by Huntington Estate and Friends
Sydney, NSW
Wise Music G. Schirmer Australia Pty Ltd
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Paul Stanhope
STRING QUARTET No 3
I Tracks & Traces
II Dirrari Lament
III River-Run
duration circa 21 minutes
StringQuartetNo3wascommissionedforMusicaVivaAustraliaby HuntingtonEstateandFriends
First performance by the Goldner Quartet at the Huntington Festival, Huntington Estate, Mudgee, 28 November 2014.
*Melody for “Dirrari Lament” composed by Molly Jalakbiya. Used with permission of the custodians of this song, June Oscar and Patsy Bedford (Bunuba Community, Western Australia).
My third string quartet was written with many thoughts still spinning about the Kimberley region in the north-west of Australia, where I travelled a number of times in preparation for the large dramatic cantata Jandamarra: Sing for the Country, premiered by the Sydney Symphony in 2014. This string quartet reflects on aspects of the story of Jandamarra who lived in the late 1880s and 90s and its impact on the Kimberley region Jandamarra, a Bunuba man who initially works as a tracker for white troopers, participates in the hunting down of his own people, before switching sides and becoming a resistance fighter. Although a flawed hero who pays for his heroism with his own life, he is revered by his people as a Jalgangurru – a figure of great cultural spiritual power.
The first movement Tracks and Traces is marked ‘With a relentless sense of pursuit’ and is, at times, claustrophobic, sinister and edgy. Having previously tracked and imprisoned many of his own, Jandamarra becomes Western Australia’s most wanted man. A fast, repeated descending figure heard in the opening of the movement represents musical footprints which are pursued and tracked through various sonic landscapes, at times with close-knit polyphony, patterns twisting and whirling. Related figures are superimposed, drawn out and developed. A slower, middle section brings a quieter intensity as soaring figures in the first violin introduce material that is transformed in the return to the original tempo, where various duos are explored. The spiralling figures of the opening return and the musical hunt is complete with snapping Bartok pizzicati
The melody of Dirrari Lament was composed by a Bunuba woman, Molly Jalakbiya*. Her song is a lament about a mother black cockatoo who grieves at the death of her baby. This song was used as a symbol in the Jandamarra cantata as a lament for the passing of the young hero. The movement is essentially a threnody for the departed and was written around the time of my teacher, Peter Sculthorpe’s passing. Given Peter’s tremendous contribution to the string quartet literature, this movement also represents a tribute to this great Australian composer.
River-run represents a more optimistic outlook which was inspired by the waterways of the Kimberley. Earlier in 2014, during a rehearsal day on a riverbank not far from Fitzroy Crossing, some of the local kids spent the morning jumping from a tree into the swirling, fast water of the mighty Fitzroy River, known as Martuwarra to peoples of the Kimberley. To my eyes, the water looked dangerous, yet the aunties guided the kids to a safe spot where they were spun gently back to the beach. This harmonious relationship with landscape may well be an unoriginal observation on my part, but was still impressive! The image of a river and its people who have co-existed for thousands of years was the inspiration for the bubbling energetic music found in this movement. In my mind, an imagined musical river, depicted here, flows over crags of dreadful conflict and searing lament toward a brighter future that is somehow still over the horizon; possible but not yet present. To this end, the piece releases its energy much like a river is released into the sea. It ends quietly with something of an unanswered question.
© Paul Stanhope
String Quartet No. 3 was commissioned for Musica Viva Australia by Huntington Estate and Friends to mark 25 years of the Huntington Estate Music Festival. It was composed especially for the Goldner String Quartet in celebration of their 20th anniversary in 2015 when it received an Australian national tour.