TheThird String Quartet by American composerElliott Carter was completed in 1971. It is dedicated to theJuilliard String Quartet, and it was premiered in 1973. This quartet earned Carter his secondPulitzer Prize in Music in 1973.

Thestring quartet is divided into a pair of duos, Duo I made up of the firstviolin and thecello, and Duo II made up of the second violin andviola. The two duos play in their own overlapping movements: distinct tempos,articulation, and material, neither coinciding with the other. The first duo is instructed to playrubato throughout its fourmovements, while the second plays in strict time in six movements. In addition, each movement is assigned a characteristicinterval. The ten movements are not played continuously, but rather are fragmented and recombined, producing a total of 24 possible pairings of movements between the duos, as well as a solo statement of each movement. An additionalcoda brings the total number of sections to 35.^[1] The duos rarely synchronize and frequently clash in complexpolyrhythms anddissonances.

Each duo uses a distinctinterval class, dynamic range, phrasing, andbowing techniques per movement. The movements are:^[2]

Duo I:

Duo II:

1. Maestoso (perfect fifth)
2. Grazioso (minor seventh)
3. Pizzicato giusto, mechanico (tritone)
4. Scorrevole (minor second)
5. Largo tranquillo (major third)
6. Appassionato (major sixth)

Carter intended to achieve the effect of two distinct ensemble groups playing two pieces at once, clashing in sound. However, he stressed the importance of observing the combinations of sound between the two sound sources.

Sources

• Mead, Andrew W. (1983–84). "Pitch Structure in Elliott Carter's String Quartet No. 3".Perspectives of New Music.22 (1–2 Fall–Winter/Spring–Summer):31–60.doi:10.2307/832934.JSTOR 832934.

• Bernard, Jonathan W. 1983. "Spatial Sets in Recent Music of Elliott Carter".Music Analysis 2, no. 1 (March): 5–34.
• Godfrey, Daniel. 1987. "A Unique Vision of Musical Time: Carter's String Quartet no. 3".Sonus: A Journal of Investigations into Global Musical Possibilities 8, no. 1 (Fall): 40–59.
• Mead, Andrew W. 1995. "Twelve-Tone Composition and the Music of Elliott Carter". InConcert Music, Rock, and Jazz Since 1945: Essays and Analytical Studies, edited by Elizabeth West Marvin and Richard Hermann, 67–102. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.ISBN 1-878822-42-X.
• Schiff, David. 1998.The Music of Elliott Carter, second edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.ISBN 0-8014-3612-5.
• Schiff, David. 2001. "Carter, Elliott (Cook)".The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited byStanley Sadie andJohn Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.05030

• The String Quartets of Elliott Carter by David Harvey

• String quartets by Elliott Carter
• 1971 compositions
• Pulitzer Prize for Music–winning works

• Use shortened footnotes from May 2021
• CS1: abbreviated year range