String Quartet No. 5 by Walter Piston is a chamber-music work composed in 1962.

History

Piston's fifth string quartet was commissioned for the 1962 Berlin Festival by the Kroll Quartet, who gave the first performance on October 8, 1962. It was awarded the New York Music Critics Circle Award in 1964.

Analysis

The quartet is in three movements: Each movement is based on twelve-tone technique, though the character is cool and refined, as usual with Piston. The first movement is a binary sonata form with novel textures, tonal relations, and dynamic twists. The second movement is in variation form, with a theme presented initially as if it were a four-voice fugue, and subsequent formal ambiguities. The finale is a seven-part rondo (A–B–A–C–A–B–A), though the basic design is obscured by a number of formal devices, which led one analyst to believe it is a fugue with three subjects.

Discography