Ruth Crawford Seeger: String Quartet (1931): III. Andante

The third movement of this string quartet is nice and eerie. It mainly consists of the two violins (I think; I’m not sure) weaving two haunting, sinuously dissonant, sort of atemporal, melodies. Later the viola and cello join in and things get a bit more organized sounding (as they all sort of go tumbling down to earth and then scatter again). But the part with just the violins is the part I really like. Perfect Halloween music. Or for any other time.

This is on a CD called Portrait on Deutsche Grammophon. The String Quartet is performed by Marijke van Kooten, violin I; Heleen Hulst, violin II; Karin Dolman, viola; and Hans Woudenberg, cello.

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