This one-movement quartet was inspired by a fossilized Vampyropmorph, hence the title: Hard Rock Vampyromorph. More about Vampyromorphs below. The 'Hard Rock' bit also refers to that eponymous genre of music, whose pounding rhythms, willful exuberance and rebellious aesthetic can be heard in my music.
Vampyromorphs are somewhere in between the orders of squid and octopus, perhaps suggesting a lost evolutionary link between the two. There is only one extant species: Vampyroteuthis infernalis, literally 'The Vampire Squid from Hell'. I have written a few pieces inspired by that particular species. (If you've never encountered the Vampire Squid, look it up on YouTube. It is a super-weird animal.) The Vampire Squid has been called a 'living fossil' by biologists. This quartet was inspired by an actual fossil I saw of one of its extinct cousins, Vampyronassa rhodanica. Its attenuated remains, encased in stone, provide only a distorted trace of something that once was. We are left to imagine what it might have been like alive. When I imagine, I hear music. I imagined this.
Hard Rock Vampyromorph was commissioned by the Cuarteto Cromano, for premiere in Monterrey, Mexico on 10 May, 2018.