Nigel Butterly: String Quartet No 3 (1980) - Espressivo e rubato

Abstract

Butterley's String Quartet No. 3 was commissioned by Musica Viva and written between June 1979 and January 1980. Many have noticed a mellowing in the works of this period and a return to techniques associated with Butterley's earliest influences, Britten, Vaughan Williams, and Hindemith. In an interview shortly after it was completed the composer remarked: My style has gone on its own panicular line rather than changing. The sorts of melodic shapes, harmonies and the texture in my music were all there before. Some aspects are emphasised now more than they were then, the gentler aspects, and the rich harmonies rather than the more harsh harmonies. ... There are two aspects to writing any sort of music: ... your craft ... and your imagination. Some pieces are written with the skills you have learnt while other pieces are motivated by something inside you. I'm now more interested in only writing pieces which are motivated by a strong desire to write this piece of music. In the third quartet this requirement for p rsonal int nsity recalls in some ways the style of Tippett with whomButterley once planned to study. The expressive development o a dialogue. based on freely elaborated motivic shapes all defined early in the piece recalls the more cogent side of English pastoralism. The work is in three parts, the outer sections sharing a rhapsodically contrapuntal texture, both elaborating the same motivic material while the central section mixes three contrasting passages using a more straightforward technique of juxtaposition. - The opening viola solo of the first section contains most of the motivic material which is to form the topic of conversation for the whole movement (see Figure 43). Of all these motives perhaps the two which most strongly command the listener's attention are the tum (b) and the quintuplet figure (e). In fact, although both retain the characteristic shape of the opening to some degree they are based on the same pitch material in inversion (see Figure 44), both being characterised by strongly diatonic bias which contrasts with the surrounding chromatic material. In fact there is another cross reference within this opening theme. The tum figure (a) which is heard first in clear diatonic form is also embedded in a more chromatic variant immediately afterwards and the interplay between the chromatic and diatonic versions becomes part of the musical dialogue (see Figure 45). To this material a fourth figure is added at the bottom of the first page of the score, a descending line mixing thirds and stepwise movement (see Figure 46). The motivic dialogue is restrained and expressive and the thickness of the counterpoint which sometimes results from a rhapsodic development in four parts is controlled by restrained instrumentation and by the use of pseudo-contrapuntal heterophony in which one part freely decorates another (see Figure 47). The movement ends with a homophonic, chorale-like passage. Heterophony, often involving some rhythmic complexity, is also a feature of the Tempo I material of the second movement giving a light, ethereal quality to the interplay of the two upper strings, whose flight is finally anchored harmonically by the entry of the lower strings (see Figure 48). This texture is played off against two others, one exploiting irregular homophonic groups of even semiquavers played leggiero (Tempo II) and irregular chordal jabs (Tempo III, 1 Giocoso). In the final movement, which recalls material from both the others and which follows the first in its overall ·tructure, the role of the opening viola of the first movement is to some extent taken over by the cello who begins by freely recalling the motives of the viola under textures and harmonies from the second movement (see Figure 49). This final return to the opening material finds new ways of presenting these motives such as in the rather striking quasi-imitative passage where the instruments pair off to present a two part contrapuntal elaboration, each part in 'double strength' (see Figure 50). As in some passages from the song cycle Sometimes with One I Love (1976) the use of overtly tonal techniques such as octave doublings has a rather striking effect, implying a more positive and confident assertion of tonal thinking than is implied by the more oblique tonality suggested in the rest of the piece. And as in that work its function is to bring the musical discourse to some kind of fulfilment. By the time the chorale returns at the end, this time in the upper register, the opening turn motive has estab ·lished itself firmly in the-teKture-and the quarte ends with a mirror reversal of the chords which ended the first movement (see Figure 51) giving the A major 6/3 chord the final say." -- Peter McCallum Show more