DESCRIPTION:
String Quartet No. 2 by Andre Tchaikowsky played by the Lindsay String Quartet

Lindsay String Quartet (1985)
Peter Cropper, violin;
Ronald Birks, violin;
Robin Ireland, viola;
Bernard Gregor-Smith, 'cello
(for this recording, the viola player is Roger Bigley)

It took André more than two years to write his String Quartet No. 2, a work of about 20 minutes in performance. Eventually it was dedicated to the Lindsay String Quartet, the excellent musicians who premiered André's String Quartet No.1 (Opus 3); the initial dedication was again to Stefan Askenase, this time for his 80th birthday (the String Quartet No. 1 was dedicated to Stefan Askenase for his 75th birthday). André wrote his own program notes for the Quartet No. 2:

In July 1971, the Lindsay Quartet gave the first performance of my first quartet and immediately suggested I write another. I was flattered by the request and eager to show my gratitude. But I could think of nothing more to say in the medium and was afraid of repeating myself, so I merely promised to think about it.

Some months later, I heard the Lindsay Quartet play the Shostakovich sixth quartet. The slow movement of that work is a simple and beautiful passacaglia, a form I should never have dared to attempt in a string quartet for fear of boring the ·cellist. Bernard Gregor-Smith suggested a passacaglia with a varied bass, and this immediately helped to focus my ideas. Even then, the cellist was still restricted to going 'round in circles,' so I decided to compensate in the outer movements by giving him conspicuous and flamboyant solos.

The next logical step was to extend the concertante treatment to the other players. This at once allayed my fears of producing an identical twin of my first quartet, in which my chief aim had been a close knit truly chamber texture, and I now relished all the display I had denied myself before: high positions, single and double harmonics, quick alternations or arcato and pizzicato, and so on. It was quite a surprise that, with all of this, the new quartet is easier than the first.

Dynamically, the work is shaped like a 'V.' The first movement is a rapid, tense sonata, which calms down towards the end to set the mood for the somber passacaglia. The last movement is a continuous accelerando. As its speed increases, so does the resemblance to the first movement from which it is derived.