Ruth Crawford composed the string quartet in 1931. The composition came to be published ten years after its composition in a quarterly periodical of new music scores. In the years before composing the string quartet, Ruth helped her husband develop dissonant counterpoints for an unpublished book manuscript, and many of those ideas appear in her quartet. Ruth and her husband saw their work as representing an American tradition in modern music, independent of the European modernists.
The string quartet 1931 is divided into four movements. Each movement bases on a unique set of device that have never been implemented in a string quartet making the composition full of new ideas. The first movement is generally fast. It is built on fully independent melodies’ counterpoint. The preceding trend is scherzo-like, developing a three-note motive via constant variations in accents and implied meter. The third movement consists of all instruments playing regularly. Still, it swells to dynamic peeks at different times, with those peaks being heard as melody passed among the instruments.
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The fourth movement is the most systematic as compared to the other movements. The second half of the movement is the exact assimilation of the first, though transposed up a half step. Ruth adds a texture that entails two contractual lines; this creates a contrast of opposites. The top line consists of free notes and rhythm that gradually decrescendos through phrases that grow ever longer. The second line consists of even notes and rhythm sequentially crescendos through phrases that grow ever shorter, achieving contrast.
Crawford marks the end of the last movement by introducing a process called rotation. This is where the first note is taken and moved to the end, then a repeat of the process with the second note, and so on. Rotation is evident in the first phrase, which has the first two statements of the series, and the third phrase has the last note of the fourth statement. At the end of the second rotation, the series returns to its original form and transposition, leading to an end. Crawford’s music is considered unique due to an intense conflict between elements that result in player coordination difficulties. Also, her music emphasizes duration and time. This tends to obscure the meter.
