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- Elizabeth Maconchy
String Quartet No 13 'Quartetto Corto' (1984)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Commissioned by the City of Portsmouth International String Quartet Competition
Programme Note
Quartetto Corto was composed as a test piece for the 1985 Portsmouth String Quartet competition. It is a ‘little quartet’ in length (just eight minutes) but not in scope: the musical language has the energy and intensity which characterise all of the Elizabeth Maconchy’s Quartets, from No 1 (1931) to No 12 (1981).
The concise structure of the QUARTETTO is not hard to follow: an opening allegro moderato and a closing allegro resoluto flank a central lento. This slow section is the heart of the work, with expressve solo lines creating a rich web of harmonies. Thus the QUARTETTO is three movements in one, following a traditional quick, slow, quick form; it is also a single span, unified by the way in which the various contrasting ideas can be heard as transformations of one another.
Elizabeth Maconchy
The concise structure of the QUARTETTO is not hard to follow: an opening allegro moderato and a closing allegro resoluto flank a central lento. This slow section is the heart of the work, with expressve solo lines creating a rich web of harmonies. Thus the QUARTETTO is three movements in one, following a traditional quick, slow, quick form; it is also a single span, unified by the way in which the various contrasting ideas can be heard as transformations of one another.
Elizabeth Maconchy
View Score
Sample Pages