Caltabiano: String Quartet No. 2

String Quartet No. 2

Duration:

21 min.

Year:

1987

Catalog No.:

144-40155

	I. Allegro molto (51" -- 404 K)		download

	II. Andante (32" -- 256 K)		download

String Quartet No. 2 is in three movements, each with essentially the same musical material, so it is the treatment of the ideas that dictates the character of each movement.

The first movement, Allegro molto: Andante, opens with a fast, driving tutti of repeated chords, intervals, and rhythms, all suggesting a minor mode. When this breaks down, an andante section for viola presents the melodic intervals of the previous section in lyrical statements, in what could be considered the tonic major. During the rest of the movement, the allegro material makes several more attempts at establishing itself. Each appearance transforms the material closer to the major mode, while exhausting itself more quickly than the one before. Conversely, the andante material is transformed into the minor mode, and dominates the end of the movement.

In the short second movement, an expressive interlude, the andante material is treated by itself. Led by a pensive cello solo, it develops in a fanciful way to the climax it might have reached in the first movement. But the climax is momentary, and the musical material quickly dissolves, continuing without pause to the third movement.

This Allegro announces its beginning with the same forte chord that ended the first movement. In a series of rondo-like variations, the andante material constantly accelerates and is transformed, alternating with allegro passages that grow in strength and duration. Unlike in the first movement, it is the allegro material that finally wins out, with driving chords and rhythms, now sounding in a bright major mode.

- R.C.

This vivid three-movement work is a pitched battle between lurching thicket of dissonance and rhythms...and an open, expressive (almost tender) lyrical element first sounded by the viola and later taken up by the cello. Caltabiano has a gifted ear for expressionistic sound, and the Emerson [Quartet's] performance was gripping.
-- [Baltimore] Evening Sun

The work's outer movements contrast the ideas of dissonant allegro molto rhythmic incisiveness against andante lyricism. In the first movement the lyricism subjugates the dissonance, while in the last the aggressive spirit of the work's opening claims the final victory. These two movements frame an intermezzo that builds slowly to a gripping climax, then recedes. Caltabiano's is a vigorous, attractive work, well worth the effort for both performer and audience.
-- The [Newark] Star-Ledger