early britten. apparently he wrote this string orchestra piece just after he got dissuaded from taking a scholarship he had won to go study with alban berg in vienna, when he was 20. everyone in britain was so against the idea of serialism that everyone was like OMG and so he stayed, writing this directly afterwards in dedication to his viola teacher. (now that i think of it i can't think of any british serialists, although in late elgar and britten you can hear a different brand of semi-atonalism). it was first performed in 1934, and was a major success.
coming in at only 16 minutes, it's a brief but not silly work. the movements are sort of arrangements and rescorings of little melodies he wrote between ages of 9-12 (what were you doing as a prepubescent child, hmmmm?) they all have kind of misleadingly silly titles.
I. boisterous bourree
II. playful pizzicato
III. sentimental sarabande
IV. frolicsome finale
the opening of this last movement is a unison upthrusting sequence of fifths and fourths which lays the foundation for the whole movement. this developed through this very short movement. there is a playful minor theme played by the violins after the unison introduction, which gets played with between major and minor keys, modulating on a dime in unexpected ways that don't quite satisfy one's need for cadence. the rhythm is motoric and seems to just propel the movement full circle to the ending, which is pretty much as it began.
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