String Quartet No. 4 by

Walter Piston Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter ...

is a

chamber-music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

work composed in

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the Uni ...

History

Piston's fourth

string quartet The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...

was commissioned by the Coolidge Foundation in celebration of the centennial of

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in ...

, and is dedicated to

Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (October 30, 1864 – November 4, 1953), born Elizabeth Penn Sprague, was an American pianist and patron of music, especially of chamber music. Biography Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge's father was a wealthy wholesale ...

. It was premiered on May 18, 1952, by the

Hungarian Quartet The Hungarian String Quartet was a musical ensemble of world renown, particularly famous for its performances of quartets by Beethoven and Bartók. The quartet was founded in Budapest in 1935 (as the New Hungarian Quartet) and was disbanded in 197 ...

. It is closely related to Piston's Fourth Symphony.

Analysis

The quartet is in four

movements Movement may refer to: Generic uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Movement (sign language), a hand movement when signing * Motion, commonly referred to as movement * Movement (music), a division of a larger c ...

: #Soave ( ) #Adagio (9/8) #Leggero vivace (2/4) #Con fuoco (6/8) The first movement is a sonata-allegro in

D major D major is a major scale based on D (musical note), D, consisting of the pitches D, E (musical note), E, F♯ (musical note), F, G (musical note), G, A (musical note), A, B (musical note), B, and C♯ (musical note), C. Its key signature has two S ...

, whose harmonies are

pandiatonic Pandiatonicism is a musical technique of using the diatonic (as opposed to the chromatic) scale without the limitations of functional tonality. Music using this technique is pandiatonic. History The term "pandiatonicism" was coined by Nicolas S ...

rather than triadic. The second theme is given in the high register of the viola, with the other instruments softly accompanying '' sulla tastiera'' (near the fingerboard). The slow movement features the cello in a pensive ''

cantilena A (Italian for "lullaby" and Latin for "old, familiar song") is a vocal melody or instrumental passage in a smooth, lyrical style. References {{classical-music-stub Classical music styles ...

'', and a shifting, unstable harmony that settles on

E minor E minor is a minor scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has one sharp, on the F. Its relative major is G major and its parallel major is E major. The E natural minor scale is: Change ...

only at the end. The third movement is a

fugal In classical music, a fugue (, from Latin ''fuga'', meaning "flight" or "escape""Fugue, ''n''." ''The Concise Oxford English Dictionary'', eleventh edition, revised, ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson (Oxford and New York: Oxford Universit ...

scherzo A scherzo (, , ; plural scherzos or scherzi), in western classical music, is a short composition – sometimes a movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata. The precise definition has varied over the years, but scherzo often r ...

with a fleetness comparable to

Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonie ...

and a dense

chromaticism Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic scale, diatonic pitch (music), pitches and chord (music), chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses o ...

that recalls

Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-century classical music, ...

. Its exaggerated

staccato Staccato (; Italian for "detached") is a form of Articulation (music), musical articulation. In modern notation, it signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence. It has been described by theorists and ...

and

duple meter Duple metre (or Am. duple meter, also known as duple time) is a musical metre characterized by a ''primary'' division of 2 beats to the bar, usually indicated by 2 and multiples (simple) or 6 and multiples ( compound) in the upper figure of the ti ...

resemble the scherzos of the Flute Quintet and the Sixth Symphony, respectively, while the

pizzicato Pizzicato (, ; translated as 'pinched', and sometimes roughly as 'plucked') is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of instrument: * On bowe ...

A minor A minor is a minor scale based on A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has no flats or sharps. Its relative major is C major and its parallel major is A major. The A natural minor scale is: Changes needed for the melodic ...

chords at the opening and close recall the scherzo movements of the string quartets by

Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

and

Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism in music, Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composer ...

. The finale is in sonata-allegro form like the opening movement, but with an

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

tone. The first theme is dramatic, marked by contrasting textures, sharp dissonances, crescendos starting ''forte'', irregular downbeats, and abrupt rests. The second theme is a grotesque march. The urgent character of this movement is similar to Piston's finales from the early 1940s, and this may be because it, too, was written in wartime—the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

in the present instance.

Discography

* 1984. ''Walter Piston: String Quartet No. 3; String Quartet No. 4''. Portland String Quartet. Sounds of New England. LP recording. Northeastern Records NR 214. Boston, Massachusetts: Northeastern Records. Fourth Quartet reissued as part of ''Walter Piston: String Quartet No. 4; String Quartet No. 5; Quintet for Flute and Strings''. Doriot Anthony Dwyer, flute; Portland String Quartet (Stephen Kecskemethy and Ronald Lanz, violins; Julia Adams, viola; Paul Ross, cello). Sounds of New England. CD recording. Northeastern NR 9002-CD. Boston, Massachusetts: Northeastern Records, 1988.

References

Sources * * {{Authority control String Quartet No. 4 1951 compositions Compositions in D major Music dedicated to benefactors or patrons