VSTO (string quartet)

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VSTO is a string quartet by Alvin Curran. It was released on the album Schtyx (CRI: 1994), performed by a quartet led by David Abel of the Abel-Steinberg-Winant Trio.

Written for choreographer Trisha Brown, Curran writes: "As students, Elliott Carter said we could do anything but write octaves; here the octave rules like Gurdjieff. It is an interval that goes absolutely nowhere even when it goes up and down..."{{Cite AV media notes |title=Alvin Curran: Schtyx |year=1994 |chapter=VSTO |url=https://nwr-site-liner-notes.s3.amazonaws.com/nwcr668.pdf |first=Alvin |last=Curran |page=4 |type=Liner notes |publisher=CRI |id=CD668 |location=New York |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221112142311/https://nwr-site-liner-notes.s3.amazonaws.com/nwcr668.pdf |archive-date=12 November 2022 |url-status=live}} Richard Friedman elaborates, "Octave consonance trades with calm dissonance, and even some twisted shtetl tunes {{bracket|klezmer}}," and quotes Curran: "there is nothing to understand here...just let it happen.""[http://rchrd.com/blog/wp/2009/03/09/arditti-at-mills-perfection/ Arditti at Mills: Perfection!]", Rchrd.com Another review wonders about the specific location: "Russian (Ukrainian? Polish?)"Flegler, Joel (1995). Fanfare, Volume 18, Issue 5, p.178.

The original piece, written in memory of Giacinto Scelsi (house address: Via San Teodoro Otto, Rome), is from 1988, a revision from 1994, and is now in version 2.5. Version 1 lasts eighteen minutes and was premiered by the Silesian String Quartet in Berlin in 1989; the long version (2) was premiered in 1993 by the Soldier String Quartet in New York to accompany Brown's Another Story as in Falling; and version 2.5 was premiered by the Arditti Quartet in 2009 and lasts twenty-four minutes."[http://www.alvincurran.com/Curran_works.html List of Works]", AlvinCurran.com.

The piece, for acoustic quartet, originated in a piece for electrically enhanced string quartet and computer-controlled synthesizer (For Four Or More/Four or Five) premiered by the Kronos Quartet in Darmstadt in 1986.