4 and the assassination of Anwar Sadat, about which Rouse commented in the score program notes:As it was conceived and largely composed in 1981, the centenary of Bartok's birth, I elected to make the quartet a conscious homage to that greatest of twentieth century quartet composers.
The assassination of Anwar el-Sadat on October 6 of that year effected a partial modification of the original plan through my decision to base most of the important pitch material of the work on the initials of Sadat's name.
[1]Edward Rothstein of The New York Times praised the string quartet, remarking that "the work's outbursts seemed insistent and intemperate".
[2] Reviewing a later recording of the piece, the music critic James Manheim praised the music for "draw[ing] closely on specific models and amplify[ing] them with big, visceral effects."
But Rouse simplifies the intervallic content (the work's variation structures, Bartókian in their outlines, are based on an open fifth) and gives the string players a real workout in which the Calder players do not flag.