Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Performed by the Beaux Arts String Quartet.
I - Allegro (𝅘𝅥 = 136 or faster): 0:00
II - Andante con moto (𝅘𝅥 = 90): 4:21
III - Andante (𝅘𝅥 = 70): 6:19
IV - Allegretto (𝅘𝅥 = 132): 7:42
V - Tempo di marcia (𝅘𝅥 = 90): 10:19
Cowell's String Quartet No.4 was composed between May 22 and July 8 of 1936, completed while the composer was in prison at the California's Redwood County jail, accused of having homosexual relationships with young men. It was, according to Arthur Cohn, premiered in the late fall of 1937 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia, performed by the Stringart Quartet.
The piece was conceived as an attempt to bring closer together an increasingly elitist modernism with audiences that rejected such style. To achieve this, Cowell employs modernist techniques while using an overall accesible and tonal language. Noteworthy as well is the incorporaton of non-western musical elements of multiple cultures and ethnicities. The result is a piece very eclectic in style that can be regarded as a bridge between West and East.
In a lengthy preface to the score, Cowell stated the following: “The United Quartet is an attempt toward a more universal music style. Although it is unique in form, style and content, it is easy to understand because of its use of fundamental elements as a basis, because of repetitions which enable the auditor to become accustomed to these elements, because of the clarity and simplicity of its form, and because of the unity of form, rhythm and melody. There are in it elements suggested from many places and periods. For example, the classical feeling is represented not by the employment of a familiar classic form, but in building up a new form, carefully planned."
"Primitive music is represented, not by imitating it, nor by taking a specific melody or rhythm from some tribe, but by using a three-tone scale, and exhausting all the different ways the three tones can appear, which is a procedure of some primitive music. The Oriental is represented by modes which are constructed as Oriental modes are constructed, without being actual modes used in particular cultures. The modern is represented by the use of unresolved discords, by free intervals in two-part counterpoint, and, by the fact that the whole result is something new, and all that is new is modern!"
Picture: "Clouds and Water" (1930) by U.S. painter Arthur Dove.
Sources: tinyurl.com/2as9wgz2 and tinyurl.com/25gnta9n
To check the score: tinyurl.com/28s3ocmz
Performed by the Beaux Arts String Quartet.
I - Allegro (𝅘𝅥 = 136 or faster): 0:00
II - Andante con moto (𝅘𝅥 = 90): 4:21
III - Andante (𝅘𝅥 = 70): 6:19
IV - Allegretto (𝅘𝅥 = 132): 7:42
V - Tempo di marcia (𝅘𝅥 = 90): 10:19
Cowell's String Quartet No.4 was composed between May 22 and July 8 of 1936, completed while the composer was in prison at the California's Redwood County jail, accused of having homosexual relationships with young men. It was, according to Arthur Cohn, premiered in the late fall of 1937 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia, performed by the Stringart Quartet.
The piece was conceived as an attempt to bring closer together an increasingly elitist modernism with audiences that rejected such style. To achieve this, Cowell employs modernist techniques while using an overall accesible and tonal language. Noteworthy as well is the incorporaton of non-western musical elements of multiple cultures and ethnicities. The result is a piece very eclectic in style that can be regarded as a bridge between West and East.
In a lengthy preface to the score, Cowell stated the following: “The United Quartet is an attempt toward a more universal music style. Although it is unique in form, style and content, it is easy to understand because of its use of fundamental elements as a basis, because of repetitions which enable the auditor to become accustomed to these elements, because of the clarity and simplicity of its form, and because of the unity of form, rhythm and melody. There are in it elements suggested from many places and periods. For example, the classical feeling is represented not by the employment of a familiar classic form, but in building up a new form, carefully planned."
"Primitive music is represented, not by imitating it, nor by taking a specific melody or rhythm from some tribe, but by using a three-tone scale, and exhausting all the different ways the three tones can appear, which is a procedure of some primitive music. The Oriental is represented by modes which are constructed as Oriental modes are constructed, without being actual modes used in particular cultures. The modern is represented by the use of unresolved discords, by free intervals in two-part counterpoint, and, by the fact that the whole result is something new, and all that is new is modern!"
Picture: "Clouds and Water" (1930) by U.S. painter Arthur Dove.
Sources: tinyurl.com/2as9wgz2 and tinyurl.com/25gnta9n
To check the score: tinyurl.com/28s3ocmz
