String Quartet No. 5 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

1962 The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the world came to a Nuclear warfare, nuclear confrontation during the Cold War. Events January * January 1 – Samoa, Western Samoa becomes independent from Ne ...

History

Piston's fifth

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 for the 1962 Berlin Festival by the

Kroll Kroll or Kröll is a German, Anglo-Saxon, and Scottish surname. Notable people with the surname include: Academia * Josef Kroll (1889–1980), German classical philologist and university rector * Judith F. Kroll, American college professor in ...

Quartet, who gave the first performance on October 8, 1962. It was awarded the New York Music Critics Circle Award in 1964.

Analysis

The quartet is in three

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 ...

: #Allegro #Adagio #Allegro Each movement is based on

twelve-tone technique The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition. The technique is a means of ensuring that all 12 notes of the chromatic scale ...

, though the character is cool and refined, as usual with Piston. The first movement is a binary

sonata form The sonata form (also sonata-allegro form or first movement form) is a musical form, musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle of t ...

with novel textures, tonal relations, and dynamic twists. The second movement is in

variation form In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve melody, rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these. Variation is often contrasted with mu ...

, with a theme presented initially as if it were a four-voice

fugue 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 ...

, and subsequent formal ambiguities. The finale is a seven-part

rondo The rondo or rondeau is a musical form that contains a principal theme (music), theme (sometimes called the "refrain") which alternates with one or more contrasting themes (generally called "episodes", but also referred to as "digressions" or "c ...

(A–B–A–C–A–B–A), though the basic design is obscured by a number of formal devices, which led one analyst to believe it is a fugue with three subjects.

Discography

* 1974. ''American String Quartets, Volume II: 1900–1950''. Kohon String Quartet. 3-LP set. Vox SVBX 5305 (set); VS 4627–4632. (

Peter Mennin Peter Mennin (born Mennini; May 17, 1923 – June 17, 1983) was a prominent American composer, teacher and administrator. In 1958, he was named Director of the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and in 1962 became President of the Juilliard Sch ...

: String Quartet No. 2;

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, critic, writer, teacher, pianist, and conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as the "Dean of American Compos ...

: Pieces for String Quartet; Walter Piston: String Quartet No. 5;

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned jazz, popular music, popular and classical music. Among his best-known works are the songs "Swan ...

: Lullaby;

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassic ...

: String Quartet No. 2;

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored d ...

: Scherzo for String Quartet;

William Schuman William Howard Schuman (August 4, 1910February 15, 1992) was an American composer and arts administrator. Life Schuman was born into a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City, son of Samuel and Rachel Schuman. He was named after the 27th U.S. ...

: String Quartet No. 3;

Roger Sessions Roger Huntington Sessions (December 28, 1896March 16, 1985) was an American composer, teacher, and writer on music. He had started his career writing in a neoclassical style, but gradually moved towards complex harmonies and postromanticism, a ...

: String Quartet No. 2;

Howard Hanson Howard Harold Hanson (October 28, 1896 – February 26, 1981)''The New York Times'' – Obituaries. Harold C. Schonberg. February 28, 1981 p. 1011/ref> was an American composer, conductor, educator and music theorist. As director for forty year ...

: String Quartet, Op. 23.) New York: Vox, 1974. * 1982. ''Walter Piston: String Quartet No. 5; Quintet for Flute and String Quartet''. Doriot Anthony Dwyer, flute; Portland String Quartet. LP recording, 12 in. Northeastern Records NR 208. Boston, Massachusetts: Northeastern Records. 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. Sounds of New England. CD recording. Northeastern NR 9002-CD. Boston, Massachusetts: Northeastern Records, 1988. * 2010. ''Walter Piston: String Quartets Nos. 1, 3 and 5''.

Harlem Quartet Harlem Quartet is a string quartet that was originally composed of first-place laureates of the Sphinx Competition for Black and Latino string players. They were formed in 2006. The members are first violinist Ilmar Gavilán, second violinist Meli ...

. CD Recording. Naxos 8.559630. ong Kong Naxos Records.

References

Sources * * {{Authority control String Quartet No. 5 1962 compositions Twelve-tone compositions