My second string quartet, "Sketches From Youth," is based on a set of five miniatures written when I was a teenager back in 1980 and 1981.  The first sketch was originally for two clarinets, and the following four were written for piano.  No single sketch is more than a couple of minutes in duration, with the shortest ("Whimsy") running a mere 40 or so seconds.  Yet, despite their individual brevity, each sketch, I feel, makes its own complete musical statement. The sixth piece is not so much a miniature as a full-length movement.   Written this year, 2010, for string quartet originally, it is roughly equal in length to the five previous sketches combined.

The sketches are meant to be heard with only the slightest break between each; the fifth sketch, "Footsteps" moves without pause into the fuller-length "Finale:  Carnival. "