Mathilde is my second string quartet, taking inspiration from the words of poet Euan Tait. It tells the story of Mathilde Schoenberg, her husband Arnold and the love of her life, painter Richard Gerstl. The quartet opens with Mathilde's loneliness, with joy and then love entering the music as Richard enters her life. The central movement is a love song between the two lovers. It ends in tragedy as their love is discovered and the final lament is reminiscent of Dido's great lament for her lost love. The quartet parts interweave and play with each other. The big melodies are shared between the parts and the dramatic moments capture the audience. Written in a polymodal style, the seven movements carry the listener from dullness, through ecstatic love to the mourning of a great loss. Mathilde's voice is brought to life by a soprano, adding to the rich texture of the quartet. Mathilde was commissioned by Pat Halling and premiered by his Quartet Promusica on 26 September 2018. The audience was enthralled. Mathilde is scored for string quartet and soprano. Duration 12'. There's more at www.dominicmcgonigal.com.

Paul Dessau described his Third String Quartet, begun at Laguna Beach near Los Angeles in 1943, as predominantly lyrical. The song-like, melodious main theme of this one-movement work emerges from a series of notes grounded in tonality. A contrapuntally separated little semiquaver figure acquires increasing importance and points the way ahead to the greater rhythmical turbulence of the middle section. Syncopated imitative devices add intensity to the music until all this activity is calmed down again in the extended Coda.
By working names into his music as quotations Dessau pays musical homage to two of his aesthetic forefathers - Bach and Schoenberg - during a creative period spent in exile.

Although Paul Dessau's Second String Quartet is very closely related to twelve-note music, it cannot be said to owe its inspiration to the serial method in the strictest sense. Rene Leibowitz had introduced the composer to the fascinating world of Schoenberg's twelve-note music during his first period of exile in Paris. With this String Quartet Dessau then worked out his own way of playing with the aesthetics of modern composition. Dessau works dodecaphonic constructions into the two lengthy movements - Andante con tenerezza and Adagio - without imposing them in dogmatic fashion. Disciplined thematic work is developed in a densely polyphonic setting to create a tightly structured landscape of laconic sententiousness.