String Quartet No. 2 by Walter Piston is a chamber-music work composed in 1935.
Contents
History
Piston’s Second Quartet was composed two years after his First Quartet, and like it was premiered by the Chardon Quartet, on March 16, 1935. It was written, together with the Piano Trio, while Piston was on a Guggenheim Fellowship (Pollack 1982, 42–43).
Analysis
The quartet is in three movements:
- Lento (9/8)—Allegro (6/8)
- Adagio molto e con espressione (12/8)
- Allegro giusto (2/4)
The restlessly chromatic Lento introduction to the first movement is built on a three-note motive, A-C-D♭, that is found also in a number of the composer’s other works (Pollack 1982, -43). The boisterous main allegro portion of the movement is in A minor and sonata-allegro form. The slow movement is based on the motive from the Lento introduction of the first, and is in a chromatically inflected C major (DeVoto 1988). The finale is in changing meters, with a dissonant-contrapuntal first theme, and a pandiatonic second one that wavers between G major and E♭ major. These tonalities contrast sharply with the equally wavering A minor and C major tonalities of the movement as a whole, which remain undecided until an A minor cadence at the end of the coda, followed immediately by a surprising Picardy third A-major triad (Pollack 1982, 43).