String Quartet No. 1 (parts) (String Quartet)

The set of parts to Colin Matthews' String Quartet No.1. 

Colin Matthews’ First String Quartet was composed in 1979 and received its premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival. The first movement begins with the muted search for a melody, opening out into an animated Allegro in both triple and duple meters, before a whispered coda. The staccato Scherzo is in a recognisable three-time, marked by sudden dynamic contrasts, while the following pairs of trios have a lighter and more flowing character. The finale of the 27-minute piece is an Adagio, growing from spectral, uneasy quiet to an intense expressive climax, before subsiding again.

‘A superb, ambitious new quartet from Matthews, numerically his first but so confident one finds it hard to believe that.'
The Guardian (Edward Greenfield), 9 June 1980