YC Summer Competition 2020: My String Quartet

Hi everyone! I know this is really late (I was really caught up with academics) but yea here was my entry for the Summer Competition 2020, in which I won the 3rd place for the Traditional Judging. This is the last movement of my 1st String Quartet. (Will release the entirely of the string quartet soon once I do some extensive editing)

As per competition requirements, I had themed my pieces around the pandemic and how it has affected me. My piece is inspired by the frustration and anger that one has felt during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the chaos of the unpredictable nature of the virus, depicted by the many fast virtuosic running passages, with the introduction as if reminiscing the times before the pandemic hit.  Between these negative feelings has contrasting subjects that are in the major key, symbolizing the feeling of hope for humanity that mankind can adapt to the changes caused by the virus and get through this ordeal together. The piece ends in a major key, as a symbol of positivity and hope that mankind can adapt to the virus and create a vaccine before more innocent lives are lost. I intended to maximise the use of the resonance of the open strings in this quartet, as well as to create a virtuosic quartet that can test the limits of the conventional quartet and push the boundaries of contemporary string writing. I have also utilized an unusual structure (Introduction - Theme - 1st Subject - Theme - 2nd Subject -  1st Bridge - 1st Subject - 2nd Bridge using 2nd Subject and 1st Bridge Fragments - Theme - Coda) to add to the uniqueness of the piece. 

I know there are some inherent flaws with this that were well brought up by the judges, and I must thank their honest feedback. This entry was really rushed as I only knew of the competition very late on, and coming up with an entire 8 minute quartet in the span of just a little more than a week was really challenging. I felt I could done a lot more as the transitions could have been improved with time and there were some careless playability issues that I had overlooked. Give me time to edit the quartet, and I will be sure to improve it! Feel free to leave some feedback!