Amy Beach (Quartet for Strings in One Movement)

Amy Beach completed her Opus 89 in the year 1929. She drew her thematic material from three traditional Inuit songs. The work begins and ends in a subdued spirit (Grave), and in between is a more vibrant Più animato building towards a slightly agitated Allegro molto section. You can hear in this quartet Beach’s willingness to explore dissonance a bit more than you would find in her earlier works. Performed by Gabrielle Lester (violin), Ruth Ehrlich (violin), Martin Outram (viola), Judith Herbert (cello)