Sofia Gubaidulina - String Quartet No. 3 (1987)

Sofia Gubaidulina - String Quartet No. 3 (1987) Composer: Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931) Performers: Quatuor Molinari: Olga Ranzenhofer & Frédéric Bednarz, violin; Frédéric Lambert, viola; Pierre-Alain Bouvrette, cello. _______________________________________________ “As if to compensate for the Second Quartet’s near-absence of pizzicato, the Third, almost twice as long yet again in one movement, initially contains nothing but the plucking of strings. It, too, begins without metre though an ostinato figure on natural harmonics in the second violin provides a quasi-pulse over which the other instruments float independently. The soft, brittle soundscape is punctured by increasingly forceful shots, eventually ceding to strange conversations on pizzicato-glissandos. By far the most arresting timbre superimposes percussive Bartók pizzicato with a rustling produced by the rapid stroking of the strings with the fingers. So rich is Gubaidulina’s pizzicato palette that at