String Quartet No. 2 - Digital (Not Printable)

The A-minor string quartet is Florence Price's second contribution to the genre. It was preceded by her G-major quartet (1929) and followed by her Five Folksongs in Counterpoint for string quartet (1951). Stylistically, the melodic and harmonic language of A-minor quartet more obviously invokes mid-twentieth-century idioms than does either of the other quartets. The first movement begins with a quiet, brooding ostinato whose combination of a pedal point with a narrow, chromatically descending and ascending motive strongly contrasts with both the extensive chromaticism of the transition and the warm lyricism of the second subject — a theme whose evocative blue thirds directly bespeak Price's African American heritage. This movement seems to be driven by the tension between the narrow constraints of its opening ostinato and the melodic breadth of its main subjects — a tension that finally breaks free into a tempestuous coda that is a testament to Price's surefire dramatic pacing. That em