Concertino for string quartet

Having given the first performance of the Three Pieces for string quartet in 1915, the Flonzaley Quartet cannot have been too surprised by the score Stravinsky sent them in 1920 in response to their request for a new piece to add to their mainly classical repertoire. Like the earlier work, the Concertino offers few of the conventional string-quartet gratifications in terms of colour and texture. Its sound derives from much the same image - peculiar to Stravinsky at that time - of the string quartet as a primitive instrument, grumbly rather than lyrical, appropriate more to marking incisive rhythms than to turning elegant phrases.

However, although the form and length of the piece were left to the composer’s discretion, Stravinsky did offer a concession to the string players on this occasion by introducing a virtuoso element into the score. As he put it, “I wrote a piece in one single movement, treated in the form of a free sonata allegro, with a definitely concertante part for the first violin - hence, taking its small scale into account, the diminutive title of concertino (little concerto).” So, after an entertainingly gruff opening only a little more sophisticated in texture than the first of the Three Pieces, there is a slower middle section featuring a thoughtful double-stopped violin cadenza accompanied mainly by pizzicato cello. The last section is not so much a reprise of the first as an extension and development of it, recalling at one point the rather more colourful violin writing of The Soldier’s Tale. A brief echo of the central Andante dies out on a dissonant sigh.

Thirty-two years after the first performance of the Concertino - by the Flonzaley Quartet in New York in November 1920 - Stravinsky rewrote it for a mixed ensemble of twelve instruments, taking the opportunity at the same time to re-bar the piece and to clarify the harmonies and the phrasing.

Gerald Larner©