String Quartet No1 in F minor (2002 revision)

Written as a project during a music-writing course with the Open College Of The Arts during 1997. The nasty fugue that forms the first movement was conceived around 30 or 40 years ago as my response to all the nasty things that were going on the world at the time---a sort of angry young man's music---I suppose now you could call it "Grumpy old man's music"
I couldn't fit the awkwardly shaped tune of the Scherzo into 6/8 time so my tutor suggested it might need 7 beats to the bar. As you can see, it finished up in a mixture of 7/8 and 6/8 time.
The second tune of the alternating variations was recycled from an unused wedding song I wrote for my eldest son's wedding. "Nearest and dearest I plight my trothe to thee, to love and to cherish whatever comes to be,etc,etc" - a bit more suited to a Victorian drawing room than a modern-day wedding.
The finale starts with a quotation from the opening fugue but soon moves via a recitative passage to a more user-friendly mode in standard sonata form. The little tune that rounds off the coda came to me while travelling home on leave from the R.A.F.on the London Underground in 1951.