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1. Allegro vivace – Presto
2. Largo
3. Allegro – Allegro vivace
This String Quartet originated as a Sinfonietta for Chamber Orchestra in 1975. A quartet version was made of the second movement in 2002 and the whole work was recomposed for that medium in 2019. The piece was written during a period of study for a higher degree in composition and betrays an academic character, especially in the first movement where a twelve-tone technique involving a three-note cell irelentlessly employed. I attempted, in my revision, to soften its angularity and occasional harshness. There is a more human quality to the Largo, and the final movement includes a comic element. I considered designating the key as D-flat major, but although it opens with the dominant seventh of that key and the Finale ends with the tonic, the quartet rarely stays in this tonality for long.
For those who have an interest in arcane structural matters, the opening notes in the first violin followed by those in the viola and cello constitute a twelve-note row. The 12-note row may be thought of as a 3-note row, because it is constructed from a 3-note prime and its transposed permutations: inversion, retrograde inversion, and retrograde (D B-flat E-flat / D- flat F C / G-flat B G / A E G-sharp). The second movement has the 3-note row in the order inversion, prime, retrograde, and retrograde inversion. The third movement states the 12-note row in full in bars 6–9, with the 3-note cells presented in the order they had in the first movement. However, the 3-note retrograde inversion is modified by repeated notes as well as a change in the order of its second and third notes.