Caterina Schembri Gruener Strahl

Caterina Schembri [b.1993]
Grüner Strahl [2024]
Commissioned by the Lumiere Quartet with funds from the Arts Council
Performed by the Lumiere Quartet, Cork
MTU Cork School of Music, 7th November 2024
Grüner Strahl, meaning “Green Flash” in German, refers to a meteorological phenomenon that sometimes can be witnessed in the last moment of transition during sunsets or sunrises - a rarity that occurs only with a specific set of conditions in which the refraction of light creates a green
flash above the sun that lasts for a few seconds before disappearing. This particular phenomenon serves as the main source of inspiration for my piece and with it, the correlation I found between this image, a fleeting moment transition, and the momentary overlap between innocence and
experience.
The piece, commissioned by the Lumière Quartet for this National String Quartet Foundation tour, will see the light of day performed alongside W.A Mozart - Dissonance Quartet (1785) and F. Mendelssohn - String Quartet No.2 (1827), two pieces that inhabit a moment that I would consider akin to a Grüner Strahl in music history. The String Quartet No.2 has a particular allure within this context, it is said that when Mendelssohn composed it at the early age of 18 he was fascinated and influenced by the late string quartets of Beethoven who had died only a few months before he composed the piece. A tender liminal moment in which a young composer reflects on the work of a mature one. It is that fleeting and rare instant of transition, that undefined space, that ephemeral overlap of innocence and experience that I want to capture: a sun setting, another one rising and a rare flash of green light. Caterina Schembri