1900-1949 String Quartet Flashcards
Name 7 works for string quartet ca.1900-1949.
- Maurice Ravel: String Quartet in F (1903)
- Arnold Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2 in f-sharp, Op. 10 (1907/08)
- Alban Berg: Lyric Suite for string quartet (1926)
- Béla Bartók: String Quartet No.4 (1927)
- Anton Webern: String Quartet, Op.28 (1938)
- Béla Bartók: String Quartet No.6 (1939)
- Sergei Prokofiev: String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 92 (1941)
Piece: string quartet by Ravel.
Maurice Ravel: String Quartet in F (1903)
- Dedicated to his friend and teacher Gabriel Fauré, the work was introduced in Paris by the Heymann Quartet.
- Gabriel Fauré, to whom the work is dedicated, described the last movement as “stunted, badly balanced, in fact a failure.” Ravel himself commented on the work, “My Quartet in F major responds to a desire for musical construction, which undoubtedly is inadequately realized but which emerges much more clearly than in my preceding compositions.”
- Claude Debussy wrote to Ravel: “In the name of the gods of music and in my own, do not touch a single note you have written in your Quartet.”
- It represents one Ravel’s early achievements and his rise from obscurity.
- The quartet follows a strict four movement classical structure.
- In the opening Allegro moderato, in sonata form, one is absorbed in the intimate, delicate, sweet Ravelian atmosphere. All is delicateness and stylistic affectation, particularly in the two simple bars of the Très doux theme made up of a series of ascending quavers and crotchets which explode in the fifth bar: a theme with variations, which then returns to sink into a profoundly low register. Several repetitions of the latter introduce rhythmic excitement before we very quickly hear the second theme. The linking of the two, with a subtle alliance of keys (A and D minor) follows a classical pattern.
- The treatment of the second movement, Assez vif, frankly recalls Debussy, with its lightness of line and the vibrant force of its writing. The airy use of pizzicato from the very first bars gives way to vigour, though never vulga, quite light and short-skirted! Bien chanté, the second theme, is tinged with melancholy, introduced by the cello, filled out by the viola, and then completed by the first violin. The movement ends with a furious scherzo with firm pizzicati.
- Next the Très lent entrusts to the viola (in F sharp major) the task of revealing its dreamy side. A hovering spirit takes over the bowing, without any great trace of ambiguity. We recognize here and there material used in the first movement.
- The final Vif et agité, in 5/8 then 5/4, synthesizes the chief ideas of the first movement in the form of a last flourish. The bows scuttle on two successive levels, and then pursue each other in soaring flights which Ravel treats frenetically in technically perfect semi-quavers and trills. An opportunity for virtuosity, but also for mischief and for calm sometimes.
Piece: string quartet by Bartók, 4.
Béla Bartók: String Quartet No.4 (1927)
- five movements
- exhibits an “arch” structure — the first movement is thematically related to the last, and the second to the fourth with the third movement standing alone.
- Bartók was influenced in his writing by Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite (1926) which he had heard in 1927.
- The quartet employs a number of extended instrumental techniques. For the whole of the second movement all four instruments play with mutes, while the entire fourth movement features pizzicato. In the third movement, Bartók sometimes indicates held notes to be played without vibrato, and in various places he asks for glissandi (sliding from one note to another) and so-called Bartók pizzicati (a pizzicato where the string rebounds against the instrument’s fingerboard).
- The work is dedicated to the Pro Arte Quartet but its first public performance was given by the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet
- departs from traditional use of major and minor keys, focusing more on the chromatic scale and attempting to utilize each note equally. Regardless, Bartók doesn’t follow any form of serialism, instead dividing the semitone scale into symmetrical units, with tonal centers being based on “axes of symmetry”. He also incorporates whole-tone, pentatonic, and octatonic scales — as well as diatonic and heptatonia seconda scales — as subsets of the chromatic scale.
- His use of these subset scales allowed him to incorporate a wide range of folk music in an expanded harmonic system.
- Bartók held a long fascination with mathematics and how it pertained to music. He experimented with incorporating the golden section and the Fibonacci sequence into his writing. Though these fascinations aren’t obviously present in his Fourth String Quartet, he did incorporate symmetrical structures: Movements I and V are similar, as are Movements II and IV; Movement III is at center, greatly contrasting with the other movements.
- Movements I and V share similar motifs (some of it is based on cell z); the second theme in the first movement is prominent in the fifth. Movements II and IV share similar ideas as well, but the ideas present within these two movements can be considered variations on themes presented earlier, expanding and building on ideas presented in the first and fifth movements. Movement III differs from the other four movements in that it is textured and quiet.
- the lengths of the movements show symmetry
- Movement I utilizes whole-tone elements. Though not traditionally tonal, it is centered around ‘C’. The movement gradually progresses from cluster-like elements to full chords. This, in part, helps with building tension through the movement’s six minutes.
- The second movement moves quicker than the first, giving off a hurried feeling. The chromatic scale is widely utilized. Fast scales, trills, vibrato are all used to add color and texture. The pentatonic scale is present and apparent throughout. Additionally, the strings are used to produce horn-like and percussive effects.
- The third movement includes a great example of Bartók’s night music style. It completely departs from the first two movements in that it is more consonant, widely using diatonic and many folk-like elements. Usage of the pentatonic scale is more apparent.
From an audience point of view “‘Night Music’ consists of those works or passages which convey to the listener the sounds of nature at night”. “Eerie dissonances providing a backdrop to sounds of nature and lonely melodies”.
- The fourth movement is similar to the second, though faster. The musicians play pizzicato throughout. Bartók also utilizes “his” pizzicato throughout the movement: the “Bartók” pizzicato. Staying symmetrical, the music references and builds on ideas in Movement II.
- The final movement mirrors the first, the second theme from the first movement s eeing extensive use. Inversions and retrogrades of the theme are heard throughout the movement. Overall, the fifth movement is more liberal in using variations of themes present in the first movement.
Piece: piece for string quartet by Berg.
Alban Berg: Lyric Suite for string quartet (1926)
- The work was composed using methods derived from (but not always strictly adherent to) Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique. A set of 12 different tones gives the rough material of the composition, and the portions which have been treated more freely still adhere more or less to the technique. The “Row” of the Lyric Suite is an all-interval row (it contains one instance of each interval within the octave, 1 through 11).
- The form is unconventional: six movements, the odd-numbered of which become progressively faster and more disruptive, while the even-numbered ones become progressively slower and more intense. The expressive trajectory of the work towards greater emotional extremes is thus evident at a first hearing.
- Though publicly dedicated to Alexander von Zemlinsky (from whose Lyric Symphony it quotes), the work has been shown to possess a “secret dedication” and to outline a “secret programme”.[1] The piece embodies his feelings over the relationship with Hanna Fuchs-Robettin, the wife of a family friend and to whom the Lyric Suite was secretly dedicated. A complete copy of the first edition annotated by Berg for his dedicatee, Hanna Fuchs-Robettin (Franz Werfel’s sister, with whom Berg had an affair in the 1920s), was discovered in 1976.
- Allegretto gioviale: The first movement of the Lyric Suite develops out of the disorder of intervals in its first bar (the opening four chords being derived not from the 12-tone series but from the interval-7 cycle: a collection of pitch classes created from a sequence of the same interval class), and from this in the second and following bars, grows the Basic Set in its thematic shape. The first movement has been described as a sonata movement without the development. Thus the recapitulation follows directly upon the exposition; but, because of the highly advanced twelve-tone technique of variation, everything in this movement is developmental. The Allegretto unfolds with an engaging verve that might well be described as ‘jovial’. The texture is one in which all four instruments are closely intertwined; with a repeated-note motif, repeated at key points, the means of ensuring unity over this brief but highly active movement.
- Andante amoroso: The Andante begins with a sensuous, insinuating idea that is appropriately amorous. Also important is a slyly descending motif that appears at its tail. These are intently evolved either side of a static central passage, the music latterly evincing greater resolve before sinking back into sensuous calm.
- Allegro misterioso – Trio estatico: Berg used the signature motif, A-B♭-H-F, to combine Alban Berg (A. B.) and Hanna Fuchs-Robettin (H. F.). This is most prominent in the third movement. The Allegro is a scherzo whose scurrying outer sections are aptly marked ‘mysterious’. Several brief motifs are thrown up during its course, but the movement only takes on greater substance in the central trio estatico, whose impulsive manner is itself swallowed up by a return to the opening music. The outer sections of the Allegro misterioso present the same music forwards and then backwards, while the Trio ecstatico, the B section of the ABA, is through-composed. Berg generates a characteristic rhythmic cell through partitioning the series into a seven note chromatic segment and a complimentary five-note motive from the remaining notes.
- Adagio appassionato: The Adagio is the work’s heart, revealing an emotional depth that is well described as ‘passionate’. Heaving chords launch into a maelstrom of emotion that only abates at the movement’s still centre, the music then lurching towards a frantic climax before concluding in anxious resignation. Berg quotes a melody from Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony in movement four which originally set the words “You are mine own”.
- Presto delirando – Tenebroso: The Presto is another scherzo, though here the three ‘delirious’ main sections generate a headlong rhythmic drive. In between are two quietly pulsating trios whose tenebroso marking underlines their darkly ominous feel. The second return of the scherzo builds incessantly to the slashing final bars.
- Largo desolato: In the last movement, according to Berg’s self-analysis, the, “entire material, the tonal element too … as well as the Tristan motif” is developed “by strict adherence to the 12-note series.” The movement is actually a wordless setting of the poem De profundis clamavi by Charles Baudelaire, and has latterly even been performed as a vocal piece. The Largo opens with stealthy pizzicato chords, duly opening out into music whose ‘desolate’ manner remains. There are several brief irruptions, the last of which draws all four instruments into a whirling ostinato that, having died down, bids the players fall silent one by one as the work fades beyond earshot.
Piece: string quartet by Webern.
Anton Webern: String Quartet, Op.28 (1938)
- It was the last piece of chamber music that Webern wrote. It is also the only string quartet in which Webern used the 12-tone technique.
- three movements
- Mässig (Moderately) – a movement in variation form.
- Gemächlich (Leisurely) – in ternary form (ABA), the outer parts being a four-part canon with all the notes the same length (fluctuations in tempo aside).
- Sehr fliessend (Very flowing) – a freer movement with numerous changes in texture and mood. In a letter to Erwin Stein, Webern described the middle part of this movement as a fugue.
- The String Quartet is atonal, and is composed using the twelve-tone technique. The tone row on which the piece is based (B♭, A, C, B, D♯, E, C♯, D, G♭, F, A♭, G) is intricately constructed and based on the BACH motif (B♭, A, C, B♮).
- The first four notes of the row are the BACH motif itself, followed by its inversion, followed by same motif transposed up a minor sixth. A special property of this row is that its inversion (G, A♭, F, G♭, D, C♯, E, D♯, B, C, A, B♭) is equivalent to its retrograde.
How many string quartets did Berg write?
Only one work titled “string quartet” (not including the Lyric Suite for string quartet).
String Quartet, Op. 3 (1910).
- In two movements (Langsam and Mäßige viertel), the work is more freely atonal than the sonata. It is highly contrapuntal in texture. The first movement is in sonata form, with a main theme based on the whole-tone scale. The second movement uses a modified version of the same theme in a rondo form.
How many string quartets did Schoenberg write?
5 numbered string quartets (the 5th is incomplete), 1 un-numbered string quartet, and two separate movements for string quartet.
Presto, in C major for String Quartet (1894(?))
String Quartet in D major (1897)
Scherzo, in F major, and Trio in a minor for String Quartet, rejected from D major String Quartet (1897)
String Quartet No. 1, D minor, Op. 7 (1904/05)
String Quartet No. 2, F-sharp minor (with soprano), Op. 10 (1907/08)
String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30 (1927)
String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37 (1936)
String Quartet No. 5, (1949), fragments
Piece: Schoenberg string quartet, 2.
Arnold Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2 in f-sharp, Op. 10 (1907/08)
- In the summer, some time before the quartet was completed, the 25-year old painter Richard Gerstl, a keen musician, student of philosophy and of Greek and Latin, eloped with Schoenberg’s wife Mathilde. Three months afterward, blaming himself for the flagitious act, Gerstl committed suicide. He had been living in a rented studio in the same building as the Schoenberg apartment, had painted both of them, and given lessons to Schoenberg in the painter’s art, but also developing a passion for his wife, who was nine years younger than the composer. Largely through the meditations of Webern, she was persuaded to return to him, and he to accept her, but her maternal feeling for their two very children must have been her most compelling reason. This background in mind, the dedication is titled “To My Wife.”
- The piece includes a soprano singer for the third and fourth movements. These two vocal movements that conclude the quartet, Litanei and Entruckung (poems by Stefan George), presage a new world in Schoenberg’s musical development, the feeling of “air from another planet,” as a line in Entruckung puts it. These movements mark Schoenberg’s greatest advance in harmonic discovery and sensitivity thus far in his life: every chord, progression, combination of pitches, is utterly new and unerringly right, and the quiet, deliquescent string introduction to Entruckung, and the enthralling combination of voice and quartet throughout are a peak in early 20th century music.
- The first three movements are tonal, though this is the very extended tonality of the late Romantic period.
- The first movement is in a compressed sonata form. The theme is more important for both structure and form than the tonal arrangement.
- The second movement, the scherzo, quotes a Viennese street-song, ‘Oh du lieber Augustin’ (Oh, dear Augustin). The thematic material is made up of two complexes, which are then succeeded by a strongly contrasting development.
- Litanei: a variation movement with vocalist.
- The fourth movement has no key signature, and may be considered Arnold Schoenberg’s first experiment in atonality, making use of the entire chromatic gamut, though its adventurous harmony comes to a close on a haunting F sharp major chord. He created harmony by means of chromatic complexes and alternating fourth accords. (Schoenberg) “The fourth movement, Rapture, begins with an introduction that describes the journey from earth to another planet. The visionary poet tells of apparitions that might well be confirmed. The introduction attempts to describe the liberation from gravity - passing through clouds into increasingly thin air, forgetting earthly worries.”
Which of Schoenberg’s string quartets was the first to utilize his 12-tone method?
The String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30 (1927) was the first of Schoenberg’s string quartets to utilize his 12-tone method, particularly in the second movement (Theme and Variations. Adagio).
How many works for string quartet did Webern write?
Webern wrote 3 pieces with opus numbers (only one is titled “string quartet”) and 4 pieces without opus numbers (only one is titled “string quartet”, one also includes mezzo soprano).
- Op. 5, Five Movements for string quartet (1909)
- Op. 9, Six Bagatelles for string quartet (1913)
- Op. 28, String Quartet (1937–38)
- Langsamer Satz (slow movement) for string quartet (1905)
- String Quartet (August 1905)
- Rondo for string quartet (1906)
- Three Pieces for String Quartet and Mezzosoprano (1913)
How many string quartets did Bartók write? Name one characteristic that is notable for each.
6 string quartets.
- String Quartet No. 1 in A minor (1909): The intense contrapuntal writing of the first movement is often compared to Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet Op.131, the opening movement of which is a slow fugue. The following two movements are progressively faster, and the mood of the work lightens considerably, ending quite happily. The third movement is generally considered to be the most typical of Bartók’s mature style, including early evidence of his interest in Hungarian folk music.
- String Quartet No.2 (1915): Bartók described the first movement as being in sonata form, the second as “a kind of rondo” and the third as “difficult to define” but possibly a sort of ternary form. The first movement opens with a leaping motif based on the interval of a seventh - a quintessentially atonal figure. But it intertwines with tonal themes, including a strikingly tender minor-key motif that has a strongly medieval quality. The brooding, intense last movement (Kodály heard it as “suffering”) is particularly funereal because it is as immobile as the second movement is animated. Long stretches are rhythmically static, and the parts that do move are often interrupted by silence.
- String Quartet No.3 (1926): The work is in one continuous stretch with no breaks, but is divided in the score into four parts (Prima parte. Moderato - Seconda parte. Allegro - Recapitulazione della prima parte. Moderato - Coda: Allegro molto). Despite Bartók calling the third section a “recapitulation” it is not a straight repetition of the music from the prima parte, being somewhat varied and simplified. Although not marked as such, the coda is in fact a telescoped recapitulation of the seconda parte. The mood of the first part is quite bleak, contrasting with the second part which is livelier and provides evidence of the inspiration Bartók drew from Hungarian folk music, with dance-like melodies to the fore. The work is even more harmonically adventurous and contrapuntally complex than Bartók’s previous two string quartets and explores a number of extended instrumental techniques, including sul ponticello, col legno, glissandi and Bartók pizzicati. The piece is widely considered to be the most tightly constructed of Bartók’s six string quartets, the whole deriving from a relatively small amount of thematic material integrated into a single continuous structure. It is also Bartók’s shortest quartet, with a typical performance lasting around fifteen minutes.
- String Quartet No.4 (1927) SELECTED MAJOR WORK
- String Quartet No.5 (1934): The work is in five movements (Allegro - Adagio molto - Scherzo.alla bulgarese - Andante - Finale. Allegro vivace). The piece is in an arch form. Additionally, the first movement, which is in a sort of sonata form, is itself arch-like, in that each section of exposition is given in reverse order during the recapitulation - the melodies of each section are also inverted (played upside-down). Bartók himself pointed out that the keys used in the movement ascend in the steps of the whole tone scale: the exposition is in B flat, C and D; the development is in E; and the recapitulation is in F sharp, A flat and B flat. The three middle movements are all in ternary form, of which the third is in time signatures typical of Bulgarian folk music: nine quavers in each bar in uneven groups of 4+2+3 for the main scherzo, and ten quavers in groups of 3+2+2+3 in the trio. The two slow movements, the second Adagio molto and the fourth Andante are great examples of Bartók’s Night music style: eerie dissonances, imitations of natural sounds, and lonely melodies. The last movement is again arch-like: Bartók described it as being in the form ABCB’A’ with a coda to round things off.
- String Quartet No.6 (1939) SELECTED MAJOR WORK
Piece: Bartók string quartet, 6.
Béla Bartók: String Quartet No.6 (1939)
- The Sixth Quartet (1939), composed in the months prior to the outbreak of World War II. This was the last piece that Bartók wrote in his native Hungary before he fled to the United States to escape the war.
- For all that it adopts the traditional four movements and continues the drive towards a greater tonal and harmonic lucidity of his final decade, the quartet is among Bartók’s most equivocal statements.
- The first three movements are prefaced by a slow mesto (sadly) theme, which achieves fuller scoring and greater pathos at each return.
- Mesto - Vivace: This material is employed for only a relatively short introduction in the first movement, but is longer in the second and longer again in the third. First, a solo viola presentation leads to a sonata movement whose onward progress is questioned and sidestepped at every formal juncture.
- Mesto - Marcia: Next, a cello rendering with tremolo accompaniment leads to a march whose rhythmic profile is the only stable element in a movement of bitter irony and, in the central section, wrenching emotional intensity.
- Mesto - Burletta: Then, a three-part version leads to a burlesque which pointedly conflates the popular and the grotesque, with the only solace coming in a brief trio.
- Mesto - Molto tranquillo: In the fourth movement, the mesto material, with reminiscences of the first movement material, takes up the entire movement with a full quartet presentation. This movement pursues an avowedly melancholic path before a conclusion of poised uncertainty. It can be seen from Bartók’s sketches that he originally intended ending with a lively dance-like finale; however, upon learning of the death of his mother, he re-wrote the last movement as a deeply sad elegy.
Piece: string quartet by Ives, 2.
String Quartet No.2 (1913)
- The Second String Quartet occupied Ives from 1911 until 1913, and it was born of a typical Ives rage against what he perceived as the effeminacy of standard string quartet performances. ‘After one of those Kneisel Quartet concerts’, Ives later recalled, ‘I started a string quartet score, half mad, half in fun, and half to try out, practice, and have some fun with making those men fiddlers get up and do something like men’. The completed score reflects this combination of anger and fun as well as Ives’s lifelong spiritual quests. In a sketch for the work, he summarises the work’s programme as ‘four men – who converse, discuss, argue … fight, shake hands, shut up – then walk up the mountainside to view the firmament’. That the initial creative impetus of anger gives way to a final gesture of revelation is typical of Ives. This is reflective of the work’s conversational and sometimes confrontational programme, indicated by the titles of the three movements.
- 1.’Discussions’ AND 2. ‘Arguments’: Much of this piece uses original material, and when familiar hymns and patriotic tunes appear in the first two movements, they appear in such quick, polyphonic, and densely chromatic snatches as to be virtually unrecognizable. ‘Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean’, one of Ives’s favourite patriotic tunes, appears in the first two movements; in the second movement, it appears as part of a four-part canon. This canon suggests that part of the argument inferred by the movement’s title might be about American versus European art: Ives gingerly contrasts popular American tunes with fleeting moments from Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Brahms’s Second Symphony.
- ‘The Call of the Mountains’: The last movement begins with a dissonant, almost atonal passage that slowly yields to a whole-tone scale surrounded by snippets of hymn tunes; as the whole-tone scale in turn brings forth a tonal centre of D, the score exudes a tranquility that suggests the arguing foursome have forgotten their differences as they contemplate the eternal from a spot in the mountains. The final moments of this quartet are surely among Ives’s most transcendent utterances.
Name 2 French composers of string quartets ca.1900-1949.
- Maurice Ravel: String Quartet in F (1903)
- Gabriel Fauré: String Quartet in e (1924)
Name 2 Czech composers of string quartets ca.1900-1949. Include a few details about one piece.
- Josef Suk: 2 numbered string quartets, 1 unnumbered string quartet
- String Quartet in d (1888)
- String Quartet No. 1 in B♭ (1896)
- String Quartet No. 2 (1911)
- Leoš Janáček: 2 string quartets
- String Quartet No. 1 “Kreutzer Sonata” (1923)
- String Quartet No.2 “Intimate Letters” (1928)
Leoš Janáček: String Quartet No. 1 “Kreutzer Sonata” (1923)
- inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata. (The novella was in turn inspired by Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 9, known as the “Kreutzer Sonata” from the name of its dedicatee, Rodolphe Kreutzer.)
- “I was imagining a poor woman, tormented and run down, just like the one the Russian writer Tolstoy describes in his Kreutzer Sonata”
- In the music of the quartet is depicted psychological drama containing moments of conflict as well as emotional outbursts, passionate work rush towards catharsis and to final climax.
- Using a principle of thematic montage, the quartet almost abandons the fields of traditional harmony, homophony and counterpoint and instead makes free with the varied sonic factors typical of Janáček, including his characteristic modal inflections.
