Richard Arnell – String Quartet No. 6, Opus 170

This sixth string quartet is in six sections, played almost without a break. Begun in 1987 the work was subsequently abandoned, then restarted in 1990 and completed in May 1992. Premiered at the Cheltenham Music Festival. For professionals and advanced students.

Review: “Richard Arnell’s 6th String Quartet opens in an intriguing way using a scale of the composer’s own making. Look Back is the second movement’s title, which is an andante which I felt Elgar himself might not have disclaimed. Followed by a Dance in flamboyant mood, and then a duet for viola and cello. To hear a violin cadenza with an accompaniment is not completely unknown. Elgar has done it. On this night we heard Bowes playing artistically, with his colleagues using an imaginative technique. The work came to a conclusion with a restatement identified by the musical term ‘sostenuto’ – sustained. It gave the audience a great deal of delight, and the composer was there with the musicians to receive a sustained ovation.” – Douglas Drane in the Citizen, July 1992.

Review: “Richard Arnell’s Quartet No 6 immediately struck with its unusual harmonization, not chromatic, but based on a scale in which the semitone intervals do not occur where you expect them. There are six contrasting movements, played almost without a break between them; the fifth movement, called Accompanied Cadenza, is just that, but both the cadenza and the accompaniment are out of the ordinary. The quartet is a remarkable work if not all instantly accessible.” – East Anglian Times, July 1993

Biography

Arnell, Richard

Richard Arnell was born in London in 1917 and educated at the Hall School, Hampstead and University College School before entering the Royal College of Music where he studied composition with John Ireland and Piano with Sir John Dykes. It was here that he began his first string quartet which was first performed by the Galimer Quartet at the 52nd Street New York Public Library in 1940. In 1938 he was awarded the Farrar Prize for composition. Between 1939 and 1947 he wrote his first important compositions, including his first three symphonies, concertos for violin and for piano and three string quartets. He was taken up by eminent conductors, among them Leopold Stokowski and Sir Thomas Beecham. From 1943 to 1946 he was music consultant to the BBC's North American Service. In 1947 he returned to England and became a composition teacher at Trinity College of Music, remaining on the staff until his retirement in 1987. He became an Honorary Fellow of the College in 1950 and a Principal Lecturer in 1981. He was appointed as music director and board member of the London International Film School from 1975 to 1988 when he retired. Arnell died in 2009.