Saxophone Quartet or Clarinet Quartet (1997, rev. 2007) One movement, ca. 8’
Premiered by the Amherst Saxophone Quartet in Buffalo, New York.
“The other premiere was Charles Griffin’s Panta Rei, a pulsing, fast, free-flowing piece of tight, dense textures and few open spaces, save for an island of rather uneasy repose in the middle.” – The Buffalo News (9/19/99)
Here’s a video of Quattro Differente, from their recent performance at Rigas Jaunais Teatris in Riga, Latvia:
Program Note:
Panta Rei is a Greek expression attributed to Heraclitus, a philosopher who lived from 536 to 470 BC. The expression is meant to capture the experience of the flow of time. He argued that “One cannot step into the same stream twice, for other waters and yet others go ever flowing on;” that everything is constantly changing, from the smallest grain of sand to the stars in the sky. This description is also appropriate for a great deal of music, the art form most dependent on the flow of time and our experience of that flow. I came upon this quote and the idea for this piece after reading James Gleick’s “Chaos: Making a New Science.”