Dan Flanagan

String Quartet

Composer's Note:

Water Lilies is the third string quartet by Daniel Darmesin Flanagan. Part of "The Bow and the Brush," this piece was inspired by the many paintings of water lilies by Claude Monet, particularly the example in the permanent collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. As this painting is clearly a masterwork of French Impressionism, for this composition, Dan fully embraced the influence of the composers of the same period. In Water Lilies, the audience is treated to a vignette of suspended colors, pastel surfaces, and eerie, enigmatic tonal centers. Recurring themes illustrate the floating lily pads and the murkiness below the water’s surface, eventually gurgling up to an ecstatic finish. Much like the painting itself, the quartet exhibits complex harmonies but never any hard edges.