Ravel – String Quartet in F major

^{Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)}

^{String Quartet in F major (1902-03)}

^{Maurice Ravel composed his only string quartet in 1902 and 1903, while he was a student at the Paris Conservatory. If follows a traditional four movement form, yet so distinct was Ravel’s voice by his late twenties (he was 28 when he wrote the Quartet) that it could come from the pen of no other composer.}

^{In its opening movement, Ravel wasted no time introducing his initial melodic material, a gently flowing violin melody played over rising scales. The movement’s second theme features a distinctive Ravel orchestration: violin and viola both playing the tune, but separated by two octaves.}

^{The second movement is a brisk scherzo that alternates pizzicato and bowed passages, as well as conflicting, 3-against-2 rhythmic patterns, while the slow third movement rhapsodizes melodic material first heard in the opening movement.}

^{In the finale, Ravel combines many of the characteristics that defined the previous movements: rich sonorities, rhythmic dissonance, and idiomatic instrumental textures that push the technical demands of the music into the orbit of later quartets by Bartók and Shostakovich. The movement alternates meters in three and five, which helps generate an aura of energy and excitement.}

^{© Jonathan Blumhofer}

^{Reproduction Rights: This program note may be reproduced free of charge in concert programs with a credit to the author.}