A World of Speculation: for String Quartet

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Recorded by players from the Hodgson School of Music in the Dancz Center for New Music at the University of Georgia.

“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.”
-T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton”

Time exists in a paradox of being constant yet continuously changing. Because the concept of time contains both reality and the abstract, it challenges the imagination to fully understand it. In his poem “Burnt Norton,” T.S. Eliot pens the struggle of the finite mind to fathom the vastness of the present, past, and future as one entity. The line, “If all time is eternally present, All time is unredeemable,” resonated with me about the futile questioning of “What if?” and the invaluable pursuit of living life in the present. Written for string quartet, A World of Speculation explores the complexity of “Burnt Norton” and my own struggles to comprehend the vast concept of time.