chamber music for strings |
|  | Pat Moss, 1927 - 2013 | It was with great sadness that we have learned of the death of composer Pat Moss, whose second string quartet represented Ourtext's first step in publishing work by living composers.
For me, it was a deeply rewarding experience. Even over the phone line from her native Yorkshire, her voice conveyed enormous warmth and humanity, and a joyful and positive-minded vitality that belied her actual age. Those same qualities shine through her music.
I recall a day when I was editing an early work by Respighi while playing in the background the recorded middle movement of Pat's second quartet. What I was hearing far outshone the work in front of me, but I knew which was the more likely to be ordered.
Pat was philosophical about the difficulty of getting a hearing. 'I'm not worried', she said. 'It's something I had to get out of my system, and it's done'.
In her last years, overshadowed but never cowed by cancer, she worked with me as we prepared editions of her first string quartet and a wonderful woodwind quartet, both of which are awaiting addition to the catalogue. There is more to follow.
John Harding
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