MARC BLITZSTEIN (1905-1964): String Quartet "Italian", Serenade for String Quartet, Piano Sonata, Piano Percussion Music, Scherzo "Bourgeois at Play

Description: Rare, early works from 1927 to 1932 with the piano pieces belonging to the avant-garde, percussive style which only Ornstein and Antheil, among American composers, were experimenting in. The Piano Percussion Music's third movement Rondino contains rhythmic lid-slapping and keyboard-open-and-closed slamming which will get your attention even if you've somehow managed to get used to the purely keyboard violence of what the composer later (in 1940) called "a blurted-out piece". The two string quartets are different, the four-movement Italian (1930) containing a propulsive first movement followed by a farcical allegretto, a brief presto possibile and then a nine-minute Lento which might have you thinking of late Beethoven or Bruckner with its endless, heartfelt melody. The Serenade is three Largo movements (really) which come off as single, double and triple fugues - fascinating stuff. Del Sol String Quartet, Sarah Cahill (piano).