Antonio Brosa (violin); Norman Chapple (violin); Leonard Rubens
(viola); Livio Mannucci (violoncello) Verdi's String Quartet in E minor was composed in 1873 while waiting for the production of Aida, which had been postponed. It is designed on purely classical lines. The first movement is dramatic in character and the first subject bears a certain resemblance to the music associated with Amneris in Aida. The second movement is simple and graceful and the principal subject foreshadows a passage in the first act of Falstaff. The movement in scherzo form has an operatic flavour with its melodramatic agitation. The last movement is considered the best of the four. ' In essence ', says Francis Toye, ' it consists of a single idea, treated and developed with marked ingenuity, which unmistakably suggests the rapid chatter of the women in Falstaff'.