Description

This is a sheet music edition of String Quartets 1-4 by John Ramsay
for string quartet
Published by Divine Art Edition
352 pages

String Quartet No. 1 in D minor
1.Allegro
2.Molto moderato, Variations on Marie Bhodheach
3.Scherzo
4.Lento-Rondo vivace

String Quartet No. 2 in E minor ‘Shackleton’
1.Moderato
2.Adagio
3.Adagio molto, Funeral March
4.Allegro, flamenco-Adagio molto

String Quartet No. 3 in C major
1.Adagio-Allegro con spirito
2.Adagio
3.Scherzi
4.Andante moderato, ostinato
5.Allegro moderato

String Quartet No. 4 ‘Charles Darwin’
1.Adagio
2.Più vivace
3.War Fugue
4.Epilogue

John Ramsay is a professor of geology by profession but also a very serious composer, of both chamber and orchestral works. His style is chiefly tonal though he does utilise serial techniques on occasion. The four string quartets are perfect examples of the best of ‘post-modernist’ music, employing no artificial boundaries, but being pure self expression using the most appropriate musical forms. They are to some degree programmatic and thus Romantic in idiom too and thoroughly deserve a place in the chamber music repertoire.

Audio sample