Programme Note Confectum Carmine Munus was commissioned by the Newfoundland Symphony for the Atlantic String Quartet through a grant from the Canada Council. It is in three movements, played without pause. It is dedicated to Jan and Arthur Grebneff. The title means "A Gift Written in Song" and is taken from Poem 68 by the Roman poet Catullus. In the poem, a friend who is estranged from his girlfriend has asked Catullus to write a poem to console him. Catullus has also been unable to experience love due to the recent death of his brother near Troy. Nevertheless, out of his deep affection for his friend, he launches forth into a long poem about the tragedy of Protesilaus, the first person to have been killed during the ancient Trojan War. The thought of this terrible death at Troy reminds Catullus of his own brother's death there and his poem is interrupted by an emotional lament for him. As the poem concludes, Catullus soon realizes that life does go on and that it is important to enjoy those things that life still offers. He remembers his beloved and resolves to love her in spite of all the difficulties. He offers this "gift written in song" to his friend who, like Catullus, has now been reconciled with his loved one. Poem 68 is the concluding poem in a cycle of eight which has been the subject of my doctoral thesis. This poem resolves the conflicts presented in the cycle between Catullus' unattainable vision of ideal love and the realities of the real world. I was especially struck by the summarizing nature of this poem, since, by coincidence, I have completed this work, Opus 41, at 41 years of age. For this reason, the last movement contains quotations from several of my earlier works.

REVIEWS 1. The Performance of April 8, 1990, Frederickton, New Brunswick The Daily Gleaner. Frederickton, N.B., Apr. 9, 1990: Sara Kennedy The second half of the program consisted of a work commissioned by the Newfoundland Symphony for the Atlantic String Quartet, written by Canadian composer Michael Parker. Parker's Confectum Carmine Munus (Gift Written in Song) is based on a poem by Roman poet Catullus. The piece, highly romantic in nature, is a "resolution of the conflict between ideal love and the reality of love in the world". Again the Quartet excelled in the interpretation of the piece. The intonation was excellent, especially during the many unison passages. 2. The Performance of May 12, 1990, St. John's, Newfoundland The Sunday Express, St. John's, Nfld., May 20, 1990: Ian Ball This concert also included a work commissioned by the ASQ. Michael Parker's String Quartet #1, opus 41 carries the title Confectum Carmine Munus (after Catullus, "A Gift Written in Song"). As with most modern music it is a work difficult to assess at one hearing...But there were accessible moments, and ones of beauty, that indicate that the composer has a voice and can express it. Therefore we should give his music our time and effort. One performance is not enough. 3. The Performance of October 19, 1991, Sackville, New Brunswick The Argosy Weekly: Reviewer un-named Michael Parker's Confectum Carmine Munus...[was] an inspirational work. Parker's string quartet [was received well...it is a] work marked by some captivating textures and expressive cello playing on the part of Katalin Descenyi. 4. The Performance of May 2, 1993, St. John's, Newfoundland St. John's Evening Telegram: Peter Jackson Apart from a quirky burlesque by the English composer Benjamin Britten, their only modern offering was a work written three years ago by Newfoundland's Michael Parker. It was an exciting array of contrasting moods and colors, no doubt reflective of the ancient poem about love and war which inspired it. It is also circular, beginning on a confident major chord and ending similarly, after a sustained searching episode, in a major tonality. 5. The Performance of March 14, 1997, St. John's, Newfoundland St. John's Evening Telegram: Glenn Colton The first half of the program closed with Parker's Confectum Carmine Munus (String Quartet No. 1, Op. 41). As with most of Parker's music, this is a tonally-based, accessible work written in a dramatic, harmonically rich idiom. Although the music unfolds as one continuous piece of music, there is a definite sense of traditional structural design evoked through contrasting tempi and textures. A slow, thinly-textured middle section is framed by two contrasting faster sections evoking a sense of turbulence and urgency. Some tuning problems notwithstanding, this was an effective portrayal of the contrasting moods Parker's piece comprises. The perception of distance and solitude suggested by the lean textures and sustained high notes in the middle section was especially