O'Connor, Mark - Quartet for 2 Violins, Viola, and Cello - Violin 1 - Digital Download

Quartet adapted for two violins, viola and cello in four movements was commissioned by the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival in 1990 and was premiered in August of that year. This piece represents Mark O'Connor's first work in a classical genre. The original instrumentation called for an unorthodox combination, omitting the usual second violin part and adding bass, to highlight the contrast between his fiddling style and the classical style of the other players.

Upon his adapting of the score, O'Connor discovered that in many situations, execution was much more successful with the standard string quartet configuration . The "Quartet" was released on the Warner Bros. recording, "The Fiddle Concerto". O'Connor, Daniel Phillips, Carter Brey and Edgar Meyer were the original cast who helped usher in the new O'Connor music style which helped pave the way for many more pieces to come. In this four movement work, O'Connor offers a multitude of insights into ways in which traditional fiddling and the classical string writing of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries resemble each other.

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