For string quartet
String Quartet
No. 3 · Cetera desunt
Lera Auerbach’s third numbered string quartet, Cetera desunt, is subtitled Sonnet for String Quartet: a twenty-one-minute chamber work in eight movements, commissioned by Jana Marko and Alexander Gérard and first performed by the Petersen Quartet.
Commission
Commissioned by Jana Marko and Alexander Gérard.
Premiere
9 August 2006. Hamburg — Petersen Quartet.
Movements
I. Dicis et non es
II. Sic ego non sine te … nec tecum vivere possum
III. Dicis et non facis
IV. Nec tecum vivere possum … sic ego non sine te
V. Advenitatis asinus, pulcher et fortissimus
VI. Si vis pacem, para bellum
VII. Non omnia moriar
VIII. Cetera desunt
Work Information
Sonnet for String Quartet
String Quartet No. 3
II. Sic ego non sine te … nec tecum vivere possum
III. Dicis et non facis
IV. Nec tecum vivere possum … sic ego non sine te
V. Advenitatis asinus, pulcher et fortissimus
VI. Si vis pacem, para bellum
VII. Non omnia moriar
VIII. Cetera desunt
Petersen Quartet.
The Work
Cetera desunt, Lera Auerbach’s String Quartet No. 3, carries the subtitle Sonnet for String Quartet. Its Latin title may be understood as “the rest is missing” or “what remains is absent,” suggesting a form built around incompletion, fragments and the unsaid.
The eight movements unfold through Latin phrases that read like inscriptions, contradictions, warnings and remnants: saying without being, speaking without doing, the impossibility of living with or without, preparation for war in the name of peace, and the declaration that not everything will die.
Commissioned by Jana Marko and Alexander Gérard and premiered in Hamburg by the Petersen Quartet, the work deepens Auerbach’s string-quartet cycle as a poetic and philosophical chamber form.
- Sonnet A chamber sonnet shaped from Latin fragments and aphoristic movement titles.
- Petersen Quartet First performed in Hamburg by the Petersen Quartet.
- Cetera desunt The title suggests absence, incompletion, and what remains unsaid.
Context
String Quartet No. 3 “Cetera desunt” follows Primera luz and continues Auerbach’s exploration of the quartet as an intimate theatre of language, contradiction and memory.
The work belongs to the chamber-music catalogue published by Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski and appears as score SIK 8581. As chamber music, it is presented here with the official Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski work and purchase pages rather than rental-material links.
Publisher and Materials
Published by Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski. Chamber-music score and parts are available through the official Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski work and purchase pages.