String Quartet examples Flashcards
Joseph Bologne
‘Quatuour concertant’- mid 1770s
Counterpoint and fugue
1st violin and cello- prominent
Luigi Boccherini
Quartet in C major (1761)
Virtuosic, high cello cadenza, astonishment/embarrassment
Quartet functioning without violin
Haydn op. 33 no. 2 in Eb (1761)
1st movement- model quartet texture, motivically tight-knit, 4th and 5ths, inner chugging motion
2nd movement- Trio uses exaggerated slides in 1st violin, portamento, before invention of chinrest
Finale (Joke)- playing with audience expectations/quartet playing to themselves, Presto sections between six-part chord Adagio section
Haydn op. 22 no. 3 in G minor
Inventive and varied textures- atypical for Haydn to be so intertwined
No one is a defined leader, feeling impulses together and guided by the inner parts
Beethoven ‘Serioso’ in F minor (1810)
More compact compared to his later quartets
Deliberate treatment of form and motif
‘Unison’ marking between 1st and 2nd in original manuscript opening
Beethoven Op. 127 in Eb
All moving as chords, but carlines are in unexpected places
Sforzando in bar 2 feels like a syncopation, but is actually a downbeat
Beethoven ‘Cavatina’ from op. 130
‘Oppressed’ recitative-like 1st violin, tension between emotion and suppressing
Beethoven Op. 135
Cello part imitates speaking of ‘Muss es sein? Es muss sein!’, words written under the notes on the score
Pierre Baillot (1771-1842)
Violinist and composer
Baillot quartet regularly played Haydn, Mozart, Boccherini, Beethoven; each of their concerts usually featured one work by each composer
Idea of 18-19c canon formation
Mayseder
One of the most performed composers in 1820s Vienna, large 1820s quartet output
Communicated with Beethoven and learned from his new works via notebooks
Schubert (1797-1828)
Unlike Beethoven, some of his quartets were single movement or fragmentary
Fanny Hensel- Quartet in Eb major (1834)
Published in 1988
Beethovenian influence, opening parallels Beethoven’s ‘Harp’ quartet key and contour
Final part of 1st movement is an allusion to Beethoven’s theme
Final movement- Benedict Taylor (2024)
‘fantasia-like’, ‘formally diffuse movement’ descent starting in C in 3rds instead of Eb major
Mendelssohn op. 13 in A minor
Beethovenian cyclic practice- slow introduction returns at end - highly influenced by Beethoven
Solo violin writing marked ‘Recit’- reference to Beethoven op. 130
References his own songs about unrequited love- vocal part ‘Is it true?’ in 1st violin, marked ‘cantando’, which is an unambiguously Beethovenian
Schumann Op. 41 no. 3 (1842)
Like other Central European composers, he started to experiment with gypsy/folk music, mixed with Viennese urban music
Otherness of travelers
Verbunkos- urban Viennese music and folk music ‘a highly hybrid and multicultural mix’ (Loya 2008)
Joachim (1831-1907)
Joachim Quartet, series of concerts with only Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven- completist
Performed in a square with the audience around them
Performed all Beethoven quartets except Grosse Fuge
Dvorak ‘Bohemian’ (1879)
Written in Prague
Differences with ‘American’- emphasis on embellishment, double stopping and rhythmic play- is a ‘Czech’ or ‘historical’ playing more authentic?
2nd movement ‘Dumka (Elegie)’- Ukrainian origin- pizza in cello and wistful violin create wandering fiddler iconography
Central fast section uses repetition to energise, dance feel > lyricism (Verbunkos?)
Dvorak ‘American’ (1895)
2nd movement- may have used melodies from Spilville, large Czech community and speakers
3rd movement- scarlet tanager or red eyed vireo, Dvorak was ‘really there’? (McKone 2021)
Finale- love for trains, geographical reach changed by mid-19th century, reflected by exoticism in pentatonic language
Schoenberg (1874-1951)
No. 1 in Dm- tonal
No. 2 (1908)- move into 3rd and 4th movement with soprano often seen as the first step into atonality
Nos. 3 and 4- work in serial/12 tone techniques
No. 4 (1926)- ‘if comprehensibility is hindered on one side, it must be simplified on the other’ (Schoenberg)
Julian Carillo
Quartets between 1905-1964
Madrid (2015)- no ‘teleological progression’, atonality not a ‘transitional stage’ between tonality and microtonality
Quartets ‘in a tone’ (1950s) only now being recorded
Smetana ‘From my Life’ (1876)
Each movement includes scenes from life experience, thematic recall throughout
1877 letter- deliberately for quartet, ‘almost a private composition’
Finale- folkish dance, interrupted by high E harmonic, move to the personal
His private ear condition altered the conversations he used to have with friends, he would not have told many people
Debussy- Quartet in G minor (1893)
Focus on sonorities- Neo-Japanese paintings in Montmartre, impressionism, passage of time
Beethovenian thematic recall
Timbres in 2nd, 3rd, 4th movement unifies the piece
Sound no longer a sensual decoration subordinate to form
Janacek ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ (1923), ‘Intimate Letters’
‘Kreutzer’- based on Tolstoy novella, extra-musical emotional markings, ‘like in tears’, ‘desperate’, ‘poor’ and ‘beaten’ woman
‘Intimate Letters’- the beloved woman juxtaposes the suffering in Kreutzer
Originally used viola d’amore to represent his love (from letters)- associated with female voices?
Boulez (1925-2016)
Quartets in the late 1940s
Serial procedures not limited to tones
Parameters included pitch, dynamics, rhythm
Berg- Lyric Suite (1926)
6 movements, descriptive titles
Famous modernist and technical work in the interwar period
1977- manuscript with Berg’s annotations discovered, story of innocence > love > horror and pain > impossibility of love- we construct a new interpretation after his death
‘Trio estatico’- as f as possible, but muted, also quotes from other movements all at bar 77, creating layers of meaning
Charles Ives, Quartet no. 2 (1907-1913)
1st movement- ‘Discussions’, 2nd ‘Arguments’
A modernist, dramatic discourse and not a genteel, galant conversation
Heitor Villa-Lobos, Quartet no. 5 (1931)
20th century nationalism
1st movement- sectional with contrasting tempi and themes, deliberate references to folk songs such as ‘Guia Pratico’ in the Animato
Deliberately moves between tonality and modality
Bacewicz, Quartet no. 4 (1951)
Folklore and folk idioms avoided censure
Inspired by Shostakovich’s quartets, but 1960 letter said he was ‘behind the times’ - self-framing with respect to other composers
Shostakovich, Quartet no. 6 (1956)
Codes and cyphers- personal investment
End of 1st movement- DSCH embedded in chords
End of every movement- 2 short 2 long cadential motif, these unify the disparate material throughout
Shostakovich, Quartet no. 8 (1960)
McCreless 2009- sharing of material between movements, eg prominent Eb and jump-start rhythm of 4th and 5th movements
Berlinsky 2015- ‘a musical parody full of false pathos’, vs ‘a paean of praise to the State and to the system’, he worked on the performance of Shostakovich’s quartets
Kurtag (b. 1926)
III. Capriccio- poetic/aesthetic title
Lines between instruments, meticulously marked directions which the quartet has to coordinate
