Judith Bailey: String Quartet Op. 31

This was commissioned in 1987 by the Davey String Quartet, following the death of the composer's mother the previous year. Their first performance of it was given in Kentish Town, London on instruments which were all made by luthiers. They also performed the finale in March 1992 in a concert in Symphony Hall, Birmingham, as part of the Birmingham International Women's Festival. The three movements are each headed by a literary quotation, as follows:

Adagio - "Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent" (from the Bridge of Love; an Anthology of Hope, collected by Elizabeth Basset).

Andante con moto (Fugue) - "We are what suns and winds and waters make us" (W.S. Lander).

Moderato (Rondo) - Those who spread their sails in the right way to the winds of the earth will always find themselves borne by a current towards the open seas (Teilhard de Chardin).