String Quartet (Webern) String Quartet (Webern) The String Quartet, Op. 28 by Anton Webern is written for the standard string quartet group of two violins, viola and cello. It was the last piece of chamber music that Webern wrote (his other late works include two cantatas Op. 29/31 and the "Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30"). The work was initially planned in November 1936 and was premiered at the Coolidge Festival in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on September 22, 1938 in response to a commission that year from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. It is in three movements: The String Quartet is atonal, and is composed using the
String Quartet No. 3 (Villa-Lobos) Albert and Doris Cheney, violins, Raymond Menhennick, viola, and Lysbeth LeFevre, cello . The UK premiere was given by the Stratton String Quartet (George Stratton and Carl Taylor, violins; Watson Forbes, viola; John Moore, cello) on 9 January 1934, at the Wigmore Hall, London . Because of the persistent percussive pizzicato patter in the second, scherzo movement, Villa-Lobos gave it the onomatopoeic, alliterative nickname "pipocas e potócas" (popcorn and tall tales), and this nickname is also applied to the entire quartet . The quartet, like all but the first of Villa-Lobos's works in the medium, consists of four movements: The