String Quartet No.3

Composed after finishing the vocal score of an opera based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, David Farquhar’s String Quartet No.3 (1998) is pervaded by material from the opera. A twisting, rising violin phrase provides most of the material for the first movement, in which moods shift and compound rhythms alternate and combine. Speed and capriciousness are reflected in the scherzando second movement, while the third movement is a series of variations culminating in the twisting lines of the work’s opening.