Toward Light: Quintet for Guitar and String Quartet – Daniel Strong Godfrey

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Composer: Daniel Strong Godfrey

Instrumentation: Guitar and String Quartet

Duration: apox. 21 minutes

Date Written:  (2022, revised 2023)

Program Notes:

A preliminary version of Toward Light was premiered in June of 2022 in Jordan Hall at the New England Conservatory, followed by a series of revisions and adjustments, leading to the final version, which was completed and recorded in September of 2023. The recording was released on the New Focus label (FCR 467) in October of 2025. As I wrote this music, I felt at every moment the uncertain mix of fear, exasperation, and tenuous optimism, given the recent state of affairs, that so many have experienced on a personal, national, and global level. I found the work taking on the arc of a journey from faltering light and prayerful expression (first movement); to a somewhat macabre, minuet-like dream music (second movement); to a cadenza for the guitar in which reflective echoes of the opening theme are interleaved with more rhapsodic figuration (third movement); to a finale that runs desperately toward the light—one hopes—of a brighter day (fourth movement). The quintet was privately commissioned for, and is dedicated to, guitarist Eliot Fisk and the Cassatt String Quartet.— DSG