Price & Sowerby: Music for String Quartet Avalon String Quartet

• Florence Beatrice Price (1887 - 1953): String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor:
• 1 Price: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor: I. Moderato 10:00
• 2 Price: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor: II. Andante cantabile 05:50
• 3 Price: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor: III. Juba. Allegro 04:02
• 4 Price: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor: IV. Finale. Allegro 05:53
• String Quartet in G Minor, H. 226:
• 5 Price: String Quartet in G Minor, H. 226: I. Languidly, darkly - Fast, with dash 13:47
• 6 Price: String Quartet in G Minor, H. 226: II. Very fast 06:03
• 7 Price: String Quartet in G Minor, H. 226: III. Slowly, rhapsodically 05:43
• 8 Price: String Quartet in G Minor, H. 226: IV. Broadly - Moderately fast, yet with broad sweep 05:55
• 5 Folksongs in Counterpoint for String Quartet:
• 9 Price: 5 Folksongs in Counterpoint for String Quartet: No. 1, Calvary. Adagio vigoroso 03:54
• 10 Price: 5 Folksongs in Counterpoint for String Quartet: No. 2, Clementine. Andantino 02:47
• 11 Price: 5 Folksongs in Counterpoint for String Quartet: No. 3, Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes. Andantino cantabile 04:03
• 12 Price: 5 Folksongs in Counterpoint for String Quartet: No. 4, Shortnin' Bread. Allegro 01:17
• 13 Price: 5 Folksongs in Counterpoint for String Quartet: No. 5, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Andantino 05:00
• Total Runtime 01:14:14

Info for Price & Sowerby: Music for String Quartet

Florence Price and Leo Sowerby were both prominent members of the Chicago music community in the 1930s and 1940s, and they are known to have respected each other’s work. Most of Florence Price’s compositions remained unpublished at her death, and her String Quartet in A minor was not performed in her lifetime. Its African American vernacular idioms and colorful harmonic language are characteristics shared in the famous melodies woven into the later Five Folksongs in Counterpoint. From its brooding opening through propulsive rhythms, expressive lyrical melodies and fugal finale, this premiere recording of Sowerby’s String Quartet in G minor reveals a work undeserving of its decades of obscurity.

Florence Price and Leo Sowerby spent most of their careers in Chicago and became prominent members of its musical community in the 1930s and 1940s.

Although the extent of their interaction is unclear, the two respected and corresponded with each other. This recording features two of their string quartets, both from 1935, which have languished in undeserved obscurity, and it closes with a later and slightly better-known Price quartet.

Avalon String Quartet

No biography found.

Booklet for Price & Sowerby: Music for String Quartet