Grave e sostenuto-allegro moderato Andante Allegro molto e con brio Lento Allegro commodo

In Tippett's third string quartet, there is not so much the influence of Beethoven but of Bartok. In one of his BBC broadcasts, Tippett acknowledged that it was Bartok who caused him to question how a quartet should sound. The influence resulted in Tippett's exploration of the sonority of the string quartet. Specifically by merging the thematic and background material, he drew attention to the background material. Tippett chose also to use Bartok's 5-movement form for the quartet changing the emphasis of formerly evolving succeeding movement from a previous one to that of balancing one another in an architectural design. The first, third, and fifth movements, then are all fugues in quick tempi, while the second and fourth movements are strophic and of contrasting slower tempi. Tippett's genius lies in the fact that the fugue subjects are of such character so as to carry their own weight and not be overshadowed by the background material. The result is that each movement has its own characteristic sonority. Tippett gave his first fugue a long introduction that concludes with a rhythmic motive connecting with the first statement of the fugue with its own unmistakable identity. The second movement contains two strophes, the first in the violin is major, the second in the viola and cello is minor; each is played in the tonic and then again a shortened repetition in the dominant. The central movement is a scherzo and is the most contrapuntally dense of all the movements. Tippett revised the fourth movement twice, altering the beginning of the finale after the first performance, and again as recently as 1975 stating that the finale should dovetail the fourth movement. The finale contains a chorale theme and a secondary fugue subject that had two counter-subjects.



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