Walker - Quartet Out of Time

Quartet Out of Time explores different styles of music that are heard in Nashville’s broad-based music scene. It alludes to jazz and blues, folk, rock and gospel. The piece’s title is a sort of triple-play on words:

• The instrumentation is the same as Messiaen’s iconic (and similarly-titled) Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time). Like the famous work, Quartet Out of Time explores the instruments in different permutations.

• The meter is often deliberately obscured, either by rubato or with changing metric patterns. Some sections therefore sound as if they are “out of time,” that is, not in rhythm.

• The piece was completed just under the wire in advance of a deadline, leading the composer to feel like he was indeed “out of time.”

It begins with a wandering blues/gospel line in the clarinet, joined in unison by the cello and occasionally interrupted by the violin. Following is a slow, bourbon-soaked jazz-lounge set, the instruments pairing with each other in different duos. The violin and cello briefly create an atmosphere of Appalachian “high lonesome” sound. An odd-metered segment allows the piano to display some blues/rock riffs; this leads into an extended percussion break. (Yes, a drum solo with no drummer.) The percussion morphs into the finale, a raucous funk groove that rises and falls until nothing is left: It’s as if the musicians themselves are out of time, and their break finally begins - another aspect of Nashville’s music scene.