String Quartet No.3 in A minor Op.33 (1926)

Dohnányi’s Third Quartet was written just a year before Bartók’s. Two quartets by composers of a similar age from much the same background could scarcely be more different. As Bartók said, “there is nothing really new” in Dohnányi’s music - and there’s not much that’s really Hungarian either. The Quartet in A minor is no less accomplished for that, least of all in the serious-minded, melodically engaging and masterfully constructed sonata-form first movement. The Andante, a resourcefully scored series of variations on a chorale theme, is effectively off set by a vigorously witty and occasionally even Stravinskyian scherzo-finale. a resourcefully scored series of variations on a chorale theme,