String Quartet in F major

Ravel wrote this, his only string quartet, at age 28, and it was promptly rejected by the Paris Conservatoire jury as too modern, yet Debussy reportedly urged him not to change a single note. The piece uses a cyclic design: two main themes introduced in the opening movement reappear, transformed, across all four movements, giving the whole work a sense of returning to familiar ground from new angles. The finale, marked vif et agité (lively and agitated), drives forward in an unusual 5/8 meter before closing the work with force.

What to listen for

In the second movement, all four instruments play pizzicato (plucking rather than bowing) while simultaneously subdividing the beat in conflicting ways, some players in 6/8, others in 3/4, so the rhythm seems to pull in two directions at once. Then watch for the moment the scherzo creeps back in over the tail of the trio section, overlapping rather than making a clean break, which is unusual in this form. In the finale, when the meter shifts from 5/8 to a broader 3/4 pulse, the opening theme of the whole quartet surfaces briefly before the movement pushes on to its stormy close.

Recommended rendition

The Quatuor Ebène's recording on Virgin Classics has been frequently praised for its clarity of rhythm in the scherzo and its control of the cyclic returns across movements.

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