Works for string quartet is a cycle of 4 pieces created by composer Elena Sokolovski in 2022. The cycle is built according to a certain dramatic plan.

This plan is a big wave, starting with an extremely tense, disturbing first play and ending only in the fourth, final, where the conflict reaches a tragic culmination and then a turning point, leading, as it were, to deliverance from suffering.

The two middle pieces – Andante and the sparkling Scherzo – serve in the cycle to some extent as “islands” of relative calm, but they also have an underlying, hidden tension.

A feature of the cycle is the system of dedications to four different composers, whose work in this case serves as a kind of “model” for E. Sokolovski's quartets. The styles, manners, and characters of the compositions of those addressed by E. Sokolovski find their own original embodiment in her quartets. This is a new view of the author of the 21st century from his creative positions on the figurative spheres and solutions contained in the works of other composers.

So, the first piece is dedicated to N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. It is imbued with a feeling of painful expectation by people of a terrible, unknown impending danger, and recreates this feeling that pervades the scene of the invasion of enemies from Rimsky-Korsakov's great opera «The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh». In the chamber quartet genre, Sokolovski uniquely reflects the feeling of panic before an enemy invasion.

Three waves of growing fear, which each time are replaced by almost complete silence – people seem to be listening, trying to understand where the trouble is coming from. The contrast between crowd noise and the silence is quite strong and certainly very impressive.

In the five-sounding fast motifs, one can hear, as it were, the words “Oh, the trouble is coming!”, “We will all die!”. Moans, screams form “human discord.” Each time the waves rise higher and higher in small thirds – this tonal-harmonic plan in small thirds, used in Rimsky-Korsakov's opera, Sokolovski specially reproduced in this quartet piece. The piece ends with a diminished triad harmony.

Rhythmic means play an important role in this quartet. The five-tone structure of motives is combined with a variable time signature, and the re-emphasis of these motives and their introduction into different beats of measures introduce into the music of the quartet an ever-increasing character of mortal horror that has seized a crowd of frightened people.

In the quartet, the author uses various textural and timbre techniques. The imitations that serve as introductions to the “voices” of different people are being transformed all the time. The motives sound now in increase, now in decrease, change rhythmically and intonationally, appear in the timbre colors of arco and pizzicato.

The piece ends with the question – what is coming?..

The dramatic wave that arose in the first piece, as already mentioned, is completely completed only at the end of the fourth piece. Therefore, it is important to consider the fourth play first, and then return to the second and third.

The first quartet play is close to the fourth one in its conflicting nature, forming a dramatic arc with it. But there are no thematic, textural, harmonic or tempo connections between these quartets, but at the same time, the general conflict and even tragic concept allows drawing certain parallels between these pieces.

However, the parallels contain serious differences. If in the first play the author recreates, as it were, an “opera” tragic situation with chamber means due to an impending formidable external force, then in the fourth quartet the emerging conflict is based on deep internal psychological causes.

The fourth play is built on an extremely strong contrast of themes and their constant dialogue. The quartet begins with a quiet slow chorale in a very high register. The theme of the chorale is repeated several times in the play, each time changing the intonation somewhat, but invariably retaining its enlightened and “incorporeal” character. The intonation of the “call” sounds especially expressive in the chorale, carrying, as it were, consolation and hope for deliverance from suffering.

The sharp, fast recitative second theme is full of restless, varyingly repetitive motifs, as if it is trying to overcome some kind of barrier, but each time, despite ever higher and more powerful waves, it encounters an invincible obstacle. Reaching the culmination, the theme eventually loses its strength, its strength melts away, and from the theme there remains only a bass dominant organ point that constantly sounds muffled, like an alarming background.

The “dialogue” of themes, which alternately replace each other, takes place in the quartet four times and ends with the theme of the chorale. The harmonic plan of the choral theme is built by the composer in such a way that at the main boundaries of the form – the beginning, the intonation of the “call”, the end of the play – these episodes sound in the key of E major. The extremely distant harmonic G-minor sphere, from which the rises of the second, recitative theme invariably begin, is in extreme contrast with the first.

Contrast is the basis of other aspects of thematics. The chord structure of the first theme, its slow tempo – and the imtation-polyphonic texture of the swift second one; the extremely high register of the chorale – and the deep bass of the organ point of the second theme; the dynamics of pp and ff, and completely different strokes, shades, articulation in both themes – all testify to a fundamental difference in the field of imagery. However, the main conflict of the quartet lies not only between the themes, but within the second one: it is this that is the focus of the general tragic concept.

The structure of the dramaturgy in the fourth quartet piece seems to be very complex and original. The relief genre contrast between the two themes interacts with the deep inner psychological conflict that pervades the second theme. On the whole, a contrast-conflict type of dramatic development is being created, where the static and immutable imagery of the chorale is opposed to the explosive dynamism and drama of recitatives, the zigzag path of which ends so sadly. Was the chorale able to resolve this deeply tragic situation?..

The choral theme, as if responding to the “confusion” of recitatives with sympathy and consolation, completes the quartet with the same enlightened sound with which the piece began. The striking contrast of themes, style, genre, expressive means and features of dramaturgy determines the figurativeness of this play and makes us recall some of the outstanding and original works of Arvo Pärt, to whom this part of the cycle is dedicated.

The fourth play, therefore, is not only itself imbued with conflict, but also completes a large dramatic arc that arises in the first play and embraces the entire cycle of four quartets.

The two middle pieces of the cycle – Andante and Scherzo – contrast sharply with the extreme ones. Both of them, differing greatly from each other, do not carry, however, the tragic emotional tension and confusion of the first and fourth plays.

The imagery of the second piece serves as a sphere of “serene” peace, while recklessness and sensually refined mood fills Scherzo. Meanwhile, the question is implicitly felt in the quartets: is this serene calmness of Andante not illusory and is not fleeting audacious flight of the Scherzo? Doesn't this look like a mirage, after which a new stage of tragedy will follow?

Andante could be called a lullaby: its melodic theme sounds unhurried and calm, and the accompaniment is based on slow rocking. However, the author complicates the lullaby of the play with such nuances that allow one to hear in the music the “influxes” of other genres.

With a general tonality of C major, quiet harmonic soaring passages of D major constantly sound. The resulting polytonality is colored by the simultaneous sounding of C major and C minor, multi-layered consonances of a second-quart structure. Dissonances, quickly replacing each other, bring into the lullaby echoes of other, far from calm, genres.

The complex rhythm leads to numerous “mismatches” between the melody and the accompaniment, everything seems to shift, and the seven-bar phrases take the theme into unexpected, unpredictable tonal spheres, remaining “unfinished”.

It is worth noting such a “strangeness”: the lullaby melody sounds mainly in the soprano, but sometimes it goes into the bass register and, moreover, sounds two-voiced, as if bifurcating. So who and to whom sings this lullaby?

The timbre language of the quartet is inventive, the colors change all the time: the instruments Con sord. play either with silvery harmonics, or with soft pizzicato, or with bright trills. Echoes of some mysterious dances are heard, and the small middle of the piece, performed by all instruments pizzicato, resembles either someone's cautious steps, or the rustle and rustle of forest rain…

Listening to this work, you gradually begin to feel that the lullaby is somehow “not real”, that behind its outwardly calm, lulling sounds there is something else, unknown. Maybe it does not so much lull as it leads to oblivion and even to witchcraft stupor? And will not this peace then lead to a storm? But it is precisely these “strangenesses” that give this bizarre play an inexplicable charm.

A veil of mystery envelops the lullaby, as it were, giving it fantastic, fabulous features – those features that are heard in the beautiful musical fairy tales of A. Lyadov. The modern author dedicates his quartet to him.

The atmosphere, in which, as it were, there are no dramatic collisions, reigns not only in the second, but also in the third piece — Scherzo. But here the atmosphere is completely different. The first theme is built on rapid and stormy ups, full of indefatigable energy, and it seems that the whirlwind of movements captures everything with its unrestrained flow. In this raging stream, a dashing whistle and valiant prowess are heard.

The energy of the first theme is set off by the second, slow and languidly enticing. The second theme reveals, as it were, other aspects and mysteries of life. The themes replace each other twice, and the quartet ends with the first of them.

However, the figurative structure of the play is not so simple: it is complicated by the presence of a third, very brief theme. This theme plays the role of a leitmotif and takes place in the quartet five times, that is, before each section. The leitmotif is reminiscent of the intonation of a question and permeates the entire play – the quartet begins with it and ends with it, in a modernized form.

Describing the previous play, the “lullaby”, we mentioned that there is something different in its music, secretly and latently complicating the lullaby genre: the play, as it were, has many faces. The same is felt in Scherzo: the contrast of the two themes does not exhaust his figurative structure. The leitmotif insistently asks: is there something else behind the daring of the first theme and the enticingness of the second, giving the quartet features of ambiguity that lead to the subsequent tragic play that completes the entire cycle?

The figurative ambiguity and diversity of Scherzo is apparently generated by the contrasts and anxious expectations inherent in the music of the 20th century, a remarkable exponent of which was, in particular, Charles Ives, to whom the author of the 21st century dedicates his quartet.