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An instant critical and popular success when first performed by the Rosé Quartet in January 1924, Korngold's string quartet No.1 is an inspired work.

He had a knack of orchestrating music for small ensembles to make them sound much larger than they actually were—a habit which would endear him to movie studio music directors in years to come. This he achieves with some fiendish double- and triple-stopping for all the strings and in this quartet the genesis of this Korngold trademark can be easily discerned. Richly chromatic, the second movement is particularly lyrical and the finale centers on one of the hymns to nature which crop up from time to time in the composer's early and middle periods.