String Quartet

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John Cousins’ String Quartet is concerned with the investigation of two qualities inherent in the medium of the string quartet: the sonorous potential of the instruments when they are played ‘as one’, and the melodic possibilities of each individual instrument. The structure could be likened to a journey across a tornado, each ring of the spiral generating greater and greater contrapuntal energy, interspersed with areas of relative homophonic calm, until the perfectly still centre of the storm is reached; only to be followed by further troughs and peaks as the opposite side of the spiral is crossed. Show more