Cantabile Music Analysis

The piece itself begins with the cello playing a solo melody fairly high up the fingerboard, with the viola and violin 2 playing a simple syncopated rhythm for harmony. What is notable for this movement is that the first violin doesn’t even begin playing until measure 24, where it picks up the melody that the cello began with. For both the cello and first violin, their melodies are labeled with the instructions “cantabile ed espressivo.” This means that the solos are meant to be played in a “singing style, and with much expression” (Italian Musical Terms). From the beginning of this movement up until measure 47, the timbre and rhythm is decidedly the same. The melody is passed on from the cello to the violin 1, and little change is seen in

the violin 2 and viola parts, apart from the viola beginning to play a repeated 8th note line around the chord structure once the first violin receives the melody. However, all of this changes at measure 47. Here, the violin 1 is labeled “a tempo” and this develops into a much more passionate and frenzied part of the movement. The violin 1 plays an ascending line that is comprised entirely of 16th notes, and it is almost completely chromatic.