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Third String Quartet

Instrumentation
2vn,va,vc
Year
1987
Duration
27:00

My "Third String Quartet" was commissioned by Dartmouth College to mark the 25th Anniversary of the Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts in Hanover New Hampshire, and was first performed there by the Franciscan Quartet, on November 6, 1987. It is generated from a phrase of the Asperges Chant, which traditionally is appended to the beginning to the Mass. The work unfolds in a single 26-minute movement in which density decreases and length of line increases throughout.

-CW

 "It is a long span of thoughtful, beautiful music ... one can hear everything happen. - this is a poetic - I'd say inspired - composition, representing Wuorinen in an unusually intimate vein, and it strikes me as a major contribution to the string-quartet repertory." Andrew Porter, The New Yorker

"Wuorinen's remarkable String Quartet No.3 ... An incredibly fresh amalgam of romantic gestures, contemporary musical language and imaginative use of colors and dynamics." Washington Post

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