Traitement du temps et du timbre dans le Quatuor à cordes n° 3 de Lucien Durosoir

Lucien Durosoir’s third string quartet is the most condensed of the three. A late work, it represents the culmination of the composer’s work in terms of his quest for form. More than in his other scores, Durosoir seemed to be resolutely focused on the organisation of proportions and harmonic-melodic intervals in line with a programme of recurring numbers. In this respect, it is interesting to compare this quartet with those of his contemporaries inasmuch as this period, the 1930s, was to see a great deal of research in this genre. The quartet’s three movements, although following the traditional quick-slow-quick pattern, nevertheless contain passages in contrasting tempi which confuse the issue, as if the composer were inviting us to transcend the usual mode of listening.