QUARTISSIMO 1, 2 and 3

for String Quartet

David Hellewell

QUARTISSIMO 1 Op.108 2001

Commissioned by the Stromenti String Quartet (Leader Jack Maguire) as part of the Boscombe Arts Festival with funds provided by the Single Regeneration Budget Bournemouth Committee Partnership. First performance 9 September 2002, St Clements Church, Boscombe by the Stromenti String Quartet in the presence of the composer.

The quartet is dedicated to Jack Maguire (co-leader of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra), who is a champion of Hellewell ’s music, and who has given the first performance of Hellewell’s Peking Sonata, a virtuoso work for solo violin, and also organised and performed in a 60th anniversary concert of Hellewell’s music at the Bournemouth International; Festival in 1993.

Like much of Hellewell’s recent works, this quartet is ‘multi-dimensional’ but although, in his more classical/serious works, as against his popular music (jazz, latin, blues, rock, etc.) there is this multi-dimensionality, each piece has its own individuality and specific character. In the case of this quartet, the specific generating features are: a romantic and passionate ‘Slavic Theme’; a wild and exciting ‘Magyar’ Dance; a ‘March Mechanique’ leading to ‘Rock fragments’, which in turn evolve into sequential techniques used by minimalists such as Philip Glass (though Hellewell has been using these techniques for many years previous to minimalism). The interaction and extension of these elements is the piece.

QUARTISSIMO 2 Op.109 2002

This piece continues to explore the idioms set up in Quartissimo 1, but here the general ambience has moved towards the more jazz and blues idioms interacting with the sequential and other techniques. Sectional titles include: "Blues espress."; Sequences 1, 2, 3; "Lyric Blues"; "Chord sequence"; "Figured bass"; "Exuberant Jazz"; "Boogie!"; "Blues Funk"; "Hot ('Club of France') Jazz! And again, as in Quartissimo 1,the interaction and extension of these elements is the piece.

QUARTISSIMO 3 Op.110 2003

If Quartissimo 1 may be subtitled "The Slavic", and Quartissimo 2 "The Blues", Quartissimo 3 may be subtitled "The Dissonant". Again there is sequential treatment, but this piece is much more dynamic, fast and dissonant: in fact much of the piece is bi-tonal (nearer to early Stravinsky), with clashing semitonal rhythms and counterpoint. The form and structure is intricate, but not in a traditional sense, rather, the several repetitions of passages and phrases are subtley modified, extended, transposed and juxtaposed to present a more mosaic-like form. There are no expression instructions other than sempre staccato unless otherwise indicated. This piece is, in reality, the fast movement of a three movement string quartet, when the three Quartissimos are performed as complete quartet.