Benefitting from the afterglow of the 1949 Koussevitzky Prize for his First Symphony, Peter Racine Fricker’s original and striking First Quartet was premièred later that year to international acclaim. The Second Quartet shares a formal clarity and kinship with the tonality heard in the First, but evolving in range, technique and eloquence of expression. The symmetrical Third Quartet with its intricate variations is finely crafted in the serial style of Fricker’s later music.