String Quartet No.1

I wrote my First String Quartet in Buenos Aires, during 1948. This work was awarded the “Carlo Lopez Buchardo” prize that same year in the first national competition for composers organized by the Wagnerian Society of Buenos Aires in memory of the Argentine composer Lopez Buchardo. The work was first performed in the Wagnerian Society the following year. It was selected by the International Society for Contemporary Music for its XXVth Festival program in Frankfurt (1951) and on that occasion was performed by the Koechert Quartet.

It consists of the usual four movements – Allegro, Scherzo, Adagio and Rondo – wherein rhythms of Argentine folk music can still be perceived through a re-creation of an imaginary folklore. In this Quartet I find that some characteristics of my own articistic personality materialize for the first time: strong and incisive rythms, adagios that are anxiety-ridden, lyrical and contemplative and atmospheres that are mysterious, nocturnal and surrealistic.

-Albert Ginastera