String quartet, no. 1, op. 25

Britten's first published string quartet represented a return to the medium after an absence of five years. The work was written quickly in response to a commission from Elizabeth Coolidge, a close friend of Britten's former teacher Frank Bridge, who 'introduced' his pupil by letter. The composer found himself in the garden shed of Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson, the pianists for whom he had written the Introduction & Rondo Burlesca and the Mazurka Elegiaca. He worked outside the house so he couldn't hear them rehearsing. Britten already intended to write a quartet for the Griller Quartet, but wartime developments prevented him from linking up with them until 1942, when they gave the work its UK premiere at the Wigmore Hall. The Coolidge Quartet were the work's first performers in Los Angeles on 21st September 1941, and at the concert Britten received the Coolidge Medal for chamber music, bestowed upon him before he had even finished the commission! Critical reaction to the quartet was largely strong, and the work is held in good regard by authorities on the composer, despite acknowledgement of a few formal quirks and minor shortcomings. The third movement is recognised as a forebear of the 'moonlight' music in Peter Grimes, while the cluster of high notes with which the work begins is also commended for its originality. Michael Kennedy says that a 'suspicion of the 'cleverness' of Britten's early works...seems to have clung to this work more than to others of the period. In The Britten Companion, Philip Rupprecht points to the finale, where 'the commanding presence is a sweeping melodic line given out in stirring unison. It is at such boldly direct moments, in fact, that one senses the stylistic change, a 'new confidence in simplicity', that signals the close of Britten's American years'. - Ben Hogwood on