String Quartet examples

Question 1

Joseph Bologne

Answer 1

‘Quatuour concertant’- mid 1770s
Counterpoint and fugue
1st violin and cello- prominent

Question 2

Luigi Boccherini

Answer 2

Quartet in C major (1761)
Virtuosic, high cello cadenza, astonishment/embarrassment
Quartet functioning without violin

Question 3

Haydn op. 33 no. 2 in Eb (1761)

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Haydn op. 22 no. 3 in G minor

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Beethoven ‘Serioso’ in F minor (1810)

Answer 5

More compact compared to his later quartets
Deliberate treatment of form and motif
‘Unison’ marking between 1st and 2nd in original manuscript opening

Question 6

Beethoven Op. 127 in Eb

Answer 6

All moving as chords, but carlines are in unexpected places
Sforzando in bar 2 feels like a syncopation, but is actually a downbeat

Question 7

Beethoven ‘Cavatina’ from op. 130

Answer 7

‘Oppressed’ recitative-like 1st violin, tension between emotion and suppressing

Question 8

Beethoven Op. 135

Answer 8

Cello part imitates speaking of ‘Muss es sein? Es muss sein!’, words written under the notes on the score

Question 9

Pierre Baillot (1771-1842)

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Mayseder

Answer 10

One of the most performed composers in 1820s Vienna, large 1820s quartet output
Communicated with Beethoven and learned from his new works via notebooks

Question 11

Schubert (1797-1828)

Answer 11

Unlike Beethoven, some of his quartets were single movement or fragmentary

Question 12

Fanny Hensel- Quartet in Eb major (1834)

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Mendelssohn op. 13 in A minor

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Schumann Op. 41 no. 3 (1842)

Answer 14

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)

Question 15

Joachim (1831-1907)

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Dvorak ‘Bohemian’ (1879)

Answer 16

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?)

Question 17

Dvorak ‘American’ (1895)

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Schoenberg (1874-1951)

Answer 18

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)

Question 19

Julian Carillo

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Smetana ‘From my Life’ (1876)

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Debussy- Quartet in G minor (1893)

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Janacek ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ (1923), ‘Intimate Letters’

Answer 22

‘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?

Question 23

Boulez (1925-2016)

Answer 23

Quartets in the late 1940s
Serial procedures not limited to tones
Parameters included pitch, dynamics, rhythm

Question 24

Berg- Lyric Suite (1926)

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Charles Ives, Quartet no. 2 (1907-1913)

Answer 25

1st movement- ‘Discussions’, 2nd ‘Arguments’
A modernist, dramatic discourse and not a genteel, galant conversation

Question 26

Heitor Villa-Lobos, Quartet no. 5 (1931)

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Bacewicz, Quartet no. 4 (1951)

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Shostakovich, Quartet no. 6 (1956)

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Shostakovich, Quartet no. 8 (1960)

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Kurtag (b. 1926)

Answer 30

III. Capriccio- poetic/aesthetic title
Lines between instruments, meticulously marked directions which the quartet has to coordinate