“Yet there are human touches throughout, as in the absorbing String Quartet No 4 by Phelps Dean Witter, which the composer came up with on his way to the grocery store and which in its last movement hearkens back to Wolf’s Italian Serenade.”
Gramophone UK, October 2019
“The album concludes with Phelps Dean Witter’s String Quartet No. 4 (2014). A weightier first movement features differing episoides that flirt with chromaticism as they move in unexpected ways. After a calm central movement, the finale moves forward with great energy and makes for an exciting conclusion in modern harmonic dress. It is a very accessible addition to the repertoire.”
Cinemusical, September 2019
“Finally, Phelps Dean Witter’s three-movement String Quartet No. 4 returns to the emotional landscape of some of the earlier works on the disc, with a distinctly and rather surprisingly melodic second movement following a highly dissonant first, and with a finale that combines the sound worlds of the first two movements.”
InfoDad: Family Focused Reviews, September 2019
“QUADRANTS 3 concludes with Phelps Dean Witter’s String Quartet No. 4, a piece filled with building emotion and volume — so moving in fact that it is hard to believe the composer came up with this piece on the way to the grocery store.”
HB Direct Classics and Jazz, September 2019
“Phelps Dean Witter’s simply titled String Quartet No. 4 is infused with the composer’s lyrical sensibility.”
Winnipeg Free Press, August 2019
“The work String Quartet no. 4 by Phelps Dean Witter, a piece full of emotions.”
Sonograma Magazine, July 2019
“We end our journey with the simply-named String Quartet No. 4 by Phelps Dean Witter, a piece that, unlike the Morrow piece, actually sounds like a string quartet. The first movement, very slow, returns us to tonality but not to an echt-Romantic world; there’s too much of interest going on here, particularly in Witter’s subtle method of shifting keys right under our ears. The music develops slowly but surely, opening before us like the petals of a flower. In the midst of the first movement, Witter suddenly throws in a jaunty tune in 6/8, embroidered by countermelodies and counterpoint. The second movement, a fairly short waltz, is less adventurous harmonically, while the quick third movement is built around rhythmic figures in which the harmony moves with the rhythm. The strings then become involved in a sort of swirling series of figures, sometimes intertwining, sometimes not. It’s clever and inventive and I liked it very much.”