Jörg Widmann (b.1973)
String  Quartet No. 3 “Jagdquartett” (Hunt Quartet) (2003)

“This quartet is the development of a ‘healthy’ hunting theme in dotted rhythm (borrowed from Schumann’s Papillons) which culminates in the fragmentation and final skeletonization of an initially positive hunting figure.

Simultaneously, the situation of the four musicians changes: the bragging hunters are successively transformed into those pursued and hunted.  The additional (fatal) change in perspective in which the three upper strings gang up on the cellist and pin the blame on him is an analogy of social behavioral patterns.

The consistently playful-overexcited inflection only barely masks the earnestness which has forced itself into this work.”

—Jörg Widmann