The next quartet im including in my Lent series is one that ive been

grappling with for over a decade. When Richard Barretts 13

selfportraits was given its first UK performance at the Huddersfield
Festival in 2002, i cant have been the only person in the audience to
have been struck hard by its apparent impenetrability. Thats not an
epithet one would usually associate with Barrett; theres layer upon
layer of intricacy & connotation in his work, but almost always borne
by material thats both immediate & strikingly emotional. Put crudely,
grasping exactly what Barretts on about isnt always straight forward,
but getting where hes coming from certainly is. All of which makes the
13 selfportraits even more of an unusual & inscrutable entity.
Its perhaps not unreasonable to find the work problematic; in his
programme note, Barrett addresses this when explaining its structural
aspects:
Although it does indeed consist of thirteen structural elements (of widely
differing durations), these do not follow each other in sequence but are often
fragmented, alternated, superimposed and so on; one of them is distributed
throughout the works duration, ending as well as beginning it, and
reappearing within and between the others. So it is neither a composition in
several independent parts nor a single unfolding time span, but a
combination of the two.
I am rather intrigued by the fact that exactly the same music might be
described as confused and incoherent or on the other hand a sequence of
exquisite miniatures depending on whether it presents itself in the form of
separate movements or not. (Imagine, for example, playing Weberns
op.10 without any breaks between the pieces, or even overlapping them)
The present work attempts not to define itself one way or the other, so that if
it does sound confused, then perhaps it might be exquisitely so.

ive never actually counted to verify if i can make out thirteen distinct
material strands, but in any case that seems beside the point. Selfportraiture is the central concern here, although by citing Rembrandts
famous series, Barrett sidesteps the prospect that the portraits are of
himself (materially, there is a connection to a number of his earlier
works, but not in a way intended to be audibly referential). The focus of
attention is instead on the impulse that drives a self-portrait into being
introspectiona process that, as in so many of Barretts works from
this time & earlier seems to find a certain amount of emptiness. im
not sure if 13 selfportraits sounds empty, as such, but it is certainly
among the most withdrawn material Barrett has ever composed; often
the quartet lurks at the brink of inaudibility, & their sense of inward
preoccupation makes listening feel almost intrusive. Beneath the
evolving but ever threadbare textures, all swishing bows & splintering

tremolos, there seems to be something melodiclyrical evenat the

heart of the material, occasionally brought to the fore in periods of notquite-unison; it collapses every time, but its undoubtedly there.
Furthermore, theres a tenuous but implicit connection to one of
Barretts most prominent musical inspirations, Franz Schubert; almost
eight years earlier, at the conclusion of Vanity, the orchestra subsided
to leave a fragile string quartet playing a fragment from Schuberts
Death and the Maidencurtailed before the final chord. The tonic G
can be heard at various points throughout the 13 selfportraits, & the
final chord materialises, wafer-thin, at the end.
None of which, to me anyway, seems to make 13 selfportraits any
more accessible; it somehow remains a mysterious & even arcane
piece despite everything ive said about it. That in itself is fascinating;
perhaps in the next decade, ill find a way in. If more quartets were
prepared to take it on (in the UK at least), that might make the task
more possible.
This recording is of that first UK performance from 2002, given at the
Huddersfield Festival by the Kairos Quartet. Also broadcast was an
interview Barrett gave to Alwynne Pritchard, where he explains in more
depth his thinking behind the piece.
PROGRAM NOTE
Having been written at a time when the majority of my musical
activities are exploring different directions in which collaborative work
might be taken, 13 selfportraits takes an opposite trajectory. During
work on it, I found myself asking what it might mean for music to be
introspective. When this particular music looks in on itself, it seems
to find a certain amount of emptiness in this and other respects it
forms a counterpart to the much denser Blattwerk for cello and
electronics. While Blattwerk is centrally concerned with the idea of
proliferation, this quartet is often in danger of disappearing altogether.
Although it does indeed consist of thirteen structural elements (of
widely differing durations), these do not follow each other in sequence
but are often fragmented, alternated, superimposed and so on; one of
them is distributed throughout the works duration, ending as well as
beginning it, and reappearing within and between the others. So it is
neither a composition in several independent parts nor a single
unfolding time span, but a combination of the two.
I am rather intrigued by the fact that exactly the same music might be
described as confused and incoherent or on the other hand a

sequence of exquisite miniatures depending on whether it presents

itself in the form of separate movements or not. (Imagine, for
example, playing Weberns op.10 without any breaks between the
pieces, or even overlapping them) The present work attempts not to
define itself one way or the other, so that if it does sound confused,
then perhaps it might be exquisitely so. 13 selfportraits was initially
motivated by the sequence of self-portraits by Rembrandt, which
embody a poetic documentation of ageing. What could be meant by a
musical selfportrait?
Another aspect of introspection in this music is that much of it
derives in various ways from a number of previous works of mine, a
feature which, however, one would not often actually hear even with a
knowledge of the models in question. I was not interested in
recycling material or indulging in a private orgy of self-reference; the
intention was primarily to make the aforementioned structural
elements as disparate as possible from one another in origin, as if,
like Rembrandts images, they spanned a lifetime. 13 selfportraits was
written for the Kairos Quartet and was commissioned jointly by Wien
Modern and the BBC. It is dedicated to Ingrid Beirer.