String Quartet 1931 (Crawford Seeger)
 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (December 2015) |
Ruth Crawford Seeger's String Quartet (1931) is "regarded as one of the finest modernist works of the genre".[1] The composition is in four untitled movements.
Third movement
According to Crawford's analysis (requested by Edgard Varèse), as well as other analyses, the third movement is a sound mass composition in which a single composite melody line consists of successive tones from the different instruments.[citation needed] This is accomplished through the equality of the instruments, indicated by their cramped register and the frequent vertical crossing of their parts, legato bowing (with dotted slurs indicating preferably inaudible bow changes), and the gradual crescendos and decrescendos which are staggered among the instruments, meaning that one instrument is at its loudest while another is at its quietest. Each voice climbs over the top of the others as they move to the movement's highest dynamics, register, and climax, at which point they "break apart" or split into a four octave range created from triple-stops on all instruments.[1][failed verification]
Fourth movement
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Marked "Allegro possible", the fourth movement is a dialog between the first violin (unmuted) and the other three players (muted). The first utters one note, then two notes. The lower three then play a scurrying 20 note line in octaves. The first counters with three notes, which is replied by 19 notes from the rest. This back-and-forth goes on with the first playing more and more notes and the others playing fewer and fewer. At the midpoint the first is at 20 notes and others sustain one note. Then the first replays the 20 note figure in retrograde and half step higher and the others respond likewise. This exchange will continue when the lower three are back to the scurrying 20 note figure and the first is reduced to two notes, then one.
Sources
- ^ a b Hisama, Ellie M. (2001). Gendering Musical Modernism: The Music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon, p.4. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-64030-X.