David Fontanesi: Four String Quartets – Mark Rothko Ensemble

David Fontanesi adopts a deliberately countercultural approach in his music. He seeks a tonal language which is self-explanatory: with clear melodies and intense harmonies, a strong contrapuntal component which employs constantly the fugato style, imitations, multiple or reverse canons, progressions etc.
Quartet I has a classical structure in the distribution of movements: Allegro, Scherzo, Adagio and final Rondo, as does Quartet II: Theme with variations, Scherzo, Andante mesto and Fugue. Quartet III consists of a single movement, a sort of chaconne on the descending tetrachord (C-B flat-A flat-G, which later assumes other forms); while Quartet IV takes up the form of the 17th-century ‘church sonata’ with an introductory Poco adagio, an Allegro (fugue), an Andante (barcarola) and a Vivace on perpetual motion of the cello.