JON WARD BAUMAN (b.1939): String Quartets Nos. 1-4.

Description: Bauman seems to express more variety of emotion and do it using a wider stylistic palette in his string quartets. These works also show us much more of his career: No. 1 (1961) is a tough little ten-minute nut, complex and dissonant (the usual Bartók influence often audible in works by young composers from this period). No. 2 (1984) is much longer (22 min.) and more broadly flowing and more melodic although dissonance is still a weapon in the expressive arsenal. No. 3 (2002) must be a 9/11 piece, given its movement headings ("Agitated, rough", "Melancholy, depressed", "With hysteria and sorrow" and "Quietly with peace and joy"), while No. 4 is from the same year as the Sym. No. 5 above and is in the same luminous, consonant language (and duplicates the first three movement headings of the symphony: "Serenely", "Peacefully", "Joyfully" while finishing up with "With Peace and Confidence"). Moyzes String Quartet.