1.Poco Allegro
2.Andante quasi Adagio
3.Allegretto ma non troppo
4.Allegro rítmico

String Quartet.

04-05-1952 Agrupación Nacional de Música de Cámara. Universidad Complutense, Madrid

Samuel Ros Prize(1952). Num. 4 is a version of the work Ritmos for piano.

Comments

"Personally considered as one of the most defining sides of the personality of Xavier Montsalvatge. Of great beauty, with moments of well-knit polyphonic plots, the second movement, an "Andante quasi adagio", written from the theme of the third of his Cinco canciones negras "Chévere", "Accentuated metamorphosis of the theme" -are words of the composer himself- "that, for a brief scherzo I wrote something like an Argentinian milonga...". In its four movements, the quartet identifies as "indian", "in rememberance of the indian Catalans, name given to those who came back rich from the Antilles", creating a "colonial character" in its structural fashion."

 Antonio Iglesias.

 "The bitonal language doesn't hide the ethnic references in a collage present in the american sonic universe. In the initial Poco Allegro comes a habanera atmosphere, especially indicated in the pizzicatto rhythm in the cello, while two melodic lines played by the violins hold the tonal ambiguity and hide the folkloric tune."

Xosé Aviñoa, 1999.