Programme Notes

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) String Quartet D.804 in A minor (Rosamunde) (1824)
Allegro ma non troppo
Andante
Menuetto – Allegretto – Trio
Allegro moderato

At the age of eight, Schubert started to learn the violin from his father; six years later he was composing for the family string quartet: brothers Ignaz and Ferdinand on violin, Franz on viola and his father on cello. However, the eleven or so quartets that Schubert wrote between the ages of 14 and 20 are now, like Mozart’s early quartets, rarely played. The exuberant “Trout” piano quintet of 1819 and the surviving first movement of a C minor quartet (“Quartettsatz”) written in 1820 set the scene for the great chamber works of his later years: in 1824 the Octet, today’s A minor “Rosamunde” quartet and the D minor “Death and the Maiden”, in 1826 the G major quartet; in 1827 his two piano trios, and in 1828, his last year, the incomparable C major two-cello quintet.

The Rosamunde quartet takes its name from the Andante’s theme, which had appeared in the incidental music Schubert wrote in 1822 for an unsuccessful play of that name. The play was lost, but the incidental music was rescued from the oblivion of family chests by Sir George Grove and Arthur Sullivan on a trip to Vienna in 1867.

The quartet was written a little while after Schubert had been diagnosed with syphilis; his declining health led to depression (“the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world”) but also to a burst of creativity. The quartet’s mood is lyrical and wistful, its poignant pathos only occasionally interrupted by outbursts that presage the impending torments of “Death and the Maiden” and the terrors of the C-major quartet.

The opening two bars have the second violin simply setting the A-minor key but with the viola and cello providing an underlying threatening tremble. The first violin provides the theme (illustrated) which recalls one of Schubert’s songs ‘Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel’: “My peace is gone, My heart is sore, I shall find it never and nevermore”.

 

The Andante soaks us in the beautiful Rosamunde theme (illustrated) which eventually migrates into the minor and an agitated fortissimo outburst before peace is restored.

The Menuet maintains the mood of wistful melancholy in A-minor, whilst the Trio optimistically moves into A major though recalling an earlier Schubert song ‘The Gods of Greece’ whose mood is not one of optimism: “Beautiful world, where are you? … no god reveals himself to me”.

The last movement is a free-wheeling Rondo based on gypsy idioms. As Stephen Hefling writes: “…drone harmonies, accented second beats, a variety of dotted rhythms and quasi-improvised ritardandos. Such style hongrois is apparently Schubert’s symbolic identification with the gypsies, those passionate, melancholy bohemians rejected by bourgeoisie and aristocrats alike, whose wretched circumstances probably seemed similar to his own.”

György Kurtág (b.1926) 6 Moments Musicaux Op 44 (2005)

I. Invocatio (un fragment). Con moto, passionato
II. Footfalls (…mintha valaki jönne…- as if someone were coming). Molto sostenuto
III. Capriccio. Ben ritmato
IV. In memoriam György Sebők. Mesto, pesante
V. Rappel des oiseaux (etude pour les harmoniques). Léger, tendre, volatil à Tabea Zimmerman
VI. Les Adieux (in Janáčeks Manier [sic]). Parlando. rubato

Born into a Hungarian Jewish family in northern Romania, Kurtág moved to Budapest in 1946 when he was twenty. The year after the 1956 uprising he spent in Paris ostensibly to study with Messiaen and Milhaud, but in fact undergoing treatment for severe depression and a creative block from art psychologist Marianne Stein. She was hugely important in releasing and guiding his creativity. Kurtág ‘self-purified’ himself by eating only rice and performing angular gymnastics. He also copied out Webern scores, read Samuel Beckett and Kafka’s Metamorphosis, made stick figures out of matches, dust-balls and cigarette butts and felt as a ‘cockroach striving to change into a human being, seeking light and purity‘. He returned to Budapest, discarded his previous compositions and produced his ‘Opus 1’ a string quartet dedicated to Stein.

Writing for quartet suits Kurtág’s style: transparent, condensed and diverse in its sound world. Although his stye is distinctively his own, many of his compositions allude eclectically to others, for example: Hommage à Nancy Sinatra, Homage to Tchaikovsky, In Memory of a Just Person, Omaggio a Luigi Nono. Today’s 6 pieces, each about 2 minutes long, are his fourth work for string quartet and refer to: (II.) a poem by Endre Ady and Beckett’s play Footfalls whose central character paces metronomically across the stage; (III.) Kurtág’s friend and pianist György Sebők; (V.) viola player Tabea Zimmerman; and (VI.) the composer Janáček. The pieces use material from Kurtág’s Játékok, or Games – an open-ended series of pedagogical piano pieces similar to Bartók’s Mikrokosmos.

The following poem by Endre Ady accompanies the second piece which mirrors its bereft desolation:

No One Comes
Kipp-kopp, as if a woman were coming
On a dark stairway, trembling, running
My heart stops, I await something wonderful
In the autumn dusk, confident.

Kipp-kopp, my heart starts up once again
I hear it once again, to my deep and great pleasure
In a soft tempo, in a secret rhythm
As if someone were coming, were coming

Kipp-kopp, now a funeral twilight
A misty, hollow melody sounds
The autumn evening. Today no one comes to me
Today no one will come to me, no one.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) String Quartet Op 59 No 3 in C (1805)
Introduzione: Andante con moto. Allegro vivace
Andante con moto quasi Allegretto
Menuetto. Grazioso
Allegro molto

The Op 59 Razumovsky quartets were a revolution in quartet writing. In Joseph Kerman’s words “It is probably not too much to say that Op 59 doomed the amateur string quartet.“

The conversation between equal players of Haydn, Mozart and even Beethoven in his earlier Op 18 quartets here gives way to ‘the heroic discourse of the symphony’ – and no ordinary symphony at that. The Op 59 quartets were written in 1805-6, a full four years after the Op 18 set but only shortly after the third, Eroica Symphony (Op 55). The commission was from Count Razumovsky, the Russian ambassador to Vienna and a very able second violinist in his own quartet. Its first fiddle was Ignaz Schuppanzigh a friend, inspiration and perhaps also violin teacher to Beethoven. As well as playing with the Count, Schuppanzigh had formed his own professional quartet in 1804 in order to give public quartet concerts – a radical new departure. This accomplished quartet may have encouraged Beethoven to stretch the technical demands on the players to match his more ambitious musical conceptions.

The slow introduction of the third of the Op 59 quartets is extraordinary, not only to listen to but also to play. Rebecca Clarke: “One hardly dares breathe, and can almost see the internal counting of one’s companions floating like some astral shape above them. It is such a trying thing to play – wonderful as it is – that the entry into the Allegro vivace feels exactly like a sigh of relief at gaining solid ground again.” Its significance is intriguing. Lewis Lockwood points out its harmonic relation to the introduction to Florestan’s dungeon scene in Fidelio, written a short time earlier.

Two motifs shape the ensuing Allegro: it opens with a simple cadence (illustrated under 1), which after about 40 bars of tentative exploration leads to a joyful main theme as we finally get to the home key of C major (illustrated under 2). Only Beethoven could make such a movement out of these snippets.

Angus Watson feels the Andante evokes the stillness of stories retold on long Russian winter evenings – the ticking of the cello’s persistent pizzicato interspersed with encouragements to tell it all again.

The charmingly graceful Menuet (illustrated) ) contrasts with its assertive Trio in which the viola and second violin (written with Razumovsky in mind?), egged on by the others, lift the semiquaver runs of the Menuet and show just how far they can take them.

 

 

The opening phrase of the Menuet is inverted to give the start of the last movement’s fugue (illustrated). The viola, fresh from its triumph in the Trio, kicks off at speed for ten bars. Nobody is to be outdone, especially the first violin, who initiates a string-climbing competition, cheered on by the others. Finally, the second violin transforms the underlying slow accompanying figure into a lyrical vote of thanks and the party ends in a triumphant last fling.

Programme notes by Chris Darwin

See Chris Darwin’s Programme Notes for other works on his web page.

Leo Geyer Born 1992 Unfurling

Leo Geyer was born in London of Anglo-Indian descent. He studied jointly at Manchester University and Royal Northern College of Music where the emphasis was on composition and conducting. Continue reading 15th December 2024 – Elmore Quartet – Programme notes

Nicola Matteis c. 1650- c. 1714.
Passagio Rotto

Very little is known about Matteis’ early life other than he was probably born in Naples around 1650 and came to England at the beginning of 1670.

His fame gradually grew as a virtuoso violinist and he was credited as changing the English taste for violin playing from the French style, elaborate and highly ornamented, to the newer more lyrical, expressive Italian style.

He published a substantial amount of music, primarily instrumental, under the title ‘Ayres for the violin’ as well as a few songs.
His compositions have been described as ‘ Lively, well -crafted and expressive’.
He gave precise instructions in the prefaces to his published music, knowing that many of his customers would be amateurs, including bowing, explanation of ornaments and tempo markings.
These have proved to be a valuable resource to scholars in the reconstruction of the performance practice of the time.

He married a wealthy widow in 1700, with whom he had a son also called Nicola, and in 1714 bought a manor in Norfolk in an attempt to escape the demands of living in London.
He lived a life of luxury, but according to the contemporary diarist Roger North, ‘ an excess of pleasures threw him into a dropsyes, and so he became poor. And dyed miserable’!

Passagio Rotto ( broken passages) comes from The Second Part of Ayres for the Violin.

 

Johann Sebastian Bach 1685-1750
Sonata for violin and continuo in E minor BWV 1023
I. ( no tempo indication) II. Adagio ma non tanto III. Allemande IV. Gigue

There are several works attributed to Bach for violin and continuo ( not to be confused with the Sonatas for solo violin!) but only two, the ones in G major and the one in E minor performed here are confirmed to be by him.
It is not certain who he wrote them for, either for himself, an accomplished violinist, or for his friend Johann Georg Pisendel, the leading violinist of Central Germany at the time.
The E minor Sonata was thought to be written sometime between 1714-17, but was only first published in 1867!
It opens with a flurry of semiquavers on the violin, and after a series of lively figurations, this short movement leads straight into the poignant, lilting Adagio.
An energetic Allemande is followed by a Gigue, featuring some syncopated rhythms, giving the movement an almost jazzy, swinging feel at times, and despite the minor key, a happy-go-lucky mood!

Johann Paul von Westhoff 1656-1705
Sonata for violin and continuo in A major La Guerra.
I. Adagio con una dolce maniera – Allegro II. Tremulo Adagio III. Allegro ovvero un poco presto IV. Adagio V. Aria ( Adagio assai) VI. La Guerra cosi nominata di sua maestà VII. Aria ( Tutto Adagio) VIII. Vivace IX. Gigue.

Westhoff was born in Dresden. He became a pupil of Heinrich Schutz and in 1674 joined the Dresden Hofkapelle as musician and composer, where he remained a member for more than 20 years. During this period he travelled throughout Europe, visiting Hungary, Italy, France, Holland and Austria as one of the most famous violinists of his time and composed some of the earliest known music for solo violin.
He left Dresden in 1697 and after briefly teaching contemporary languages at Wittenberg University, in 1699 became chamber secretary, musician and teacher of French and Italian at the Weimar Court.
In Weimar he met JS Bach, who was a colleague, and proved a considerable influence on the latter composer. He died in Weimar in April 1705.

His surviving music includes seven works for violin and basso continuo and seven for solo violin, all published in his lifetime.
His Suite for Solo Violin of 1683 is the earliest known multi-movement piece for solo violin and together with his Six Partitas were a forerunner of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin.

Johann Sebastian Bach
Sonata for violin and continuo in C minor BWV 1024
I. Adagio II. Presto III. Affetuoso IV. Vivace

There is some doubt as to whether this was written by Bach or more probably by J G Pisendel. It was first published in 1867.
The opening Adagio features some poignant passage work for the violin. The Presto includes a striking descending sequence and a dramatic final cadence. A deeply expressive Affetuoso is followed by a Vivace, with notable moments where the violin and continuo play short phrases in unison, brief moments of unanimity.

Programme notes by Guy Richardson.

Bohuslav Martinů 1890-1959

Oboe Quartet H 315 Written in 1947

Moderato poco allegro

Adagio, Andante poco Moderato – poco Allegro

Martinů was a Czechoslovakian composer who was for a time a student at the Prague Conservatory. Composition was more important to him than his violin studies and he did not take to the rigours of the general curriculum and was eventually dismissed for “ incorrigible negligence” ! In the 1930s having moved to Paris Martinů wrote in the Neoclassical style and was influenced strongly by Stravinsky’s angular and rhythmic sound-world. Martinů drew on his Bohemian and Moravian traditional folk melodies and has thus been compared with Prokofiev and Bartók.

Martinů and his family fled Europe for the USA in 1940 and this oboe quartet was written in New York in a period of turbulent personal life. Martinů finally returned to Europe and died in Switzerland.

The quartet is a light piece which is rarely performed. It has two short movements. Martinů’s angular and quirky instrumental writing is evident and the strong rhythmical character and close imitation of phrases between the four players is immediately clear. The oboe is not seen here as the lead or solo player but is in balance with the other instruments.

The first movement has a genial mood and uncomplicated structure. The second movement is in three sections. The opening chords set up the dance style that reflects Martinů’s Czechoslovakian origins and sound-world. The quartet is rounded off with a short allegro that culminates in a straightforward cadence.

 

Poulenc 1899-1963

Sonata for Oboe and Piano 1962

Elégie (Paisiblement, sans presser)

Scherzo (Très animé)

Déploration ( Très calme)

Francis Poulenc was born in Paris into a prosperous and well educated family. His mother taught him the piano from a young age. As a student he met Milhaud and Satie and others who encouraged him to compose. He travelled to Vienna and met Schoenberg. Composition training was not successful and Ravel could get nowhere with this most individual musician. Poulenc wrote many pieces of chamber music and much was influenced by Jazz.

Roger Nichols Poulenc’s biographer tells us that “Poulenc’s style and the French Aesthetic…are defined by their elegance, lightness of touch and humour but with the ability to move one deeply” For some commentators Poulenc’s music is seen as slight, inconsequential and not worthy of serious consideration, but Nichols’ view is more positive and understanding of a very complex personality writing music from his own conviction rather than received education and composition training.

This sonata for oboe and piano was dedicated to the memory of Prokofiev. It is from a group of three woodwind sonatas written in the last year of his life. The first movement is in three distinct sections. The Piano keeps the pulse while the oboe weaves around using its wide register in a variety of moods. The Scherzo is a lively three part movement with a slower middle area and more rhythmic outer sections. The final movement echoes the Chorale of Bach’s time 200 years earlier. This movement is melancholic and has many references to Poulenc’s own earlier music. The harmonic language of his choral pieces and Organ Concerto for example is reflected here.

Roger Nichols in The New Grove Dictionary of Music.

Sergey Prokofiev 1891-1953

Quintet Op 39 in G Minor. 1924

Tema con variazioni, Andante energico, Allegro sostenuto, ma con brio,

Adagio pesante, Allegro precipitato, ma non troppo presto, Andantino

Prokofiev was born in Ukraine. His mother was a pianist and a very strong musical influence over her only child. He was precocious and at eleven years old began to take lessons from Glier in harmony, form and orchestration. In 1905 Prokofiev joined the St Petersburg Conservatory. This was an uncertain and disruptive time as the arts suffered in the build-up to the Revolution. In 1918 Prokofiev travelled to the USA where he made a name as an opera composer, but he was dissatisfied and moved on in 1922, this time to Paris to join his mother who was already there. He married a singer and settled into a family life with their two sons. At this time there were no plans for the family to return to Russia.

This Quintet is closely related to Prokofiev’s ballet Trapèze and is based on life in the circus. It reflects Prokofiev’s characteristically ironic and unconventional musical world. The six movements demonstrate spikey angular lines and contrasting smoother melodies. It is playful and energetic and the circus is not far away. In the first movement the two contrasting variations are formed from the oboe’s opening theme. The second movement features the double bass whose theme is taken up by the other instruments in turn. The third movement evokes the circus as the uneven rhythmical patterns in 5/4 time threaten to destabilise the listeners. The original ballet dancers found this particularly challenging too ! The Adagio pesante has a drone played by the double bass. This underpins a somewhat eerie sound above with the oboe and violin playing near the bridge. The fifth movement is as its title suggests very energetic and there are strong accents, rushing scales and pizzicato attacks. Finally a minuet and trio with instruments working in pairs. After the trio the minuet returns and the whole piece is brought to its end with a short dissonant passage and a rush to the finish which is led by the viola and double bass. Circus life indeed !

Programme notes by Helen Simpson.

 

Josef Haydn (1732-1809) String Quartet in B♭ Op 76 no 4 (1797)

Allegro con spirito
Adagio
Menuetto: Allegro
Finale: Allegro, ma non troppo

In 1795 Haydn returned from his spectacularly successful visits to England to the relatively light duties prescribed by the new Esterházy Prince Nikolaus II.  Nikolaus had abandoned his father’s palace at Esterházy, sacking its extensive musical establishment, and divided his time between Eisenstadt and Vienna.  Haydn was kept on, but his main duty was just to write a Mass for the Princess’s name day. He was free to accept other commissions.

One such commission came from Count Joseph Erdödy, the Hungarian Court Chancellor.   Although Erdödy’s father had employed an orchestra to play in their family’s three palaces, the son, on inheriting the title in 1789 responded both to contemporary taste and financial stringency by replacing the orchestra with a string quartet.  In 1796 he placed a generous commission with Haydn for six quartets.   The resulting ‘Erdödy’ quartets are a triumph, perhaps the pinnacle of Haydn’s long quartet-writing career.

The fourth of the set, nicknamed ‘The Sunrise’, dawns gently in a simple Bb chord from the three lower strings. The first violin’s theme cautiously rises, with no suggestion of the movement’s Allegro con spirito marking.  After 20-odd bars light floods in, somewhat reminiscent of the opening of ‘The Creation’ on which Haydn was working at the time, and the spirit is freed in dancing semiquavers.  The opening chord returns in F but now with the theme in the cello curving down, rather than rising.  The movement develops the contrast between these ideas.

The Adagio is one of Haydn’s most profound.  Its pausing, hesitantly rising opening recalls, in slow-motion, the start of the first movement.  The first violin’s rapt meditation is intensified by closely overlapping entries of this opening phrase.  The Menuetto is rustic rather than courtly, and its lines again recall the gentle rise of the opening sunrise.  The Trio is linked through from the Menuetto by a held chord on the cello and viola, again recalling the work’s opening.

The last movement’s structure starts with alternating major-minor episodes, but after the reprise of the major section Haydn puts his foot on the accelerator, Più allegro,  Più presto, an exhilarating race to the finish.

Schulhoff 1894 – 1942

Five Pieces for String Quartet

1.Alla Viennese
2.Alla Serenata
3. Alla Gzeca
4. Alla Tango Milonga
5. Alla Tarantella.

Dedicated to Darius Milhaud.

Ervin Schulhoff was born in Prague and became a composer and pianist. Among his early teachers were Reger and Debussy, before he moved to Germany and established himself in the company of Dadaist practitioners such as Grosz and Klee, who were working in other art forms. Back in Prague Schulhoff worked in the Prague Theatre Jazz Orchestra as the resident pianist. By the mid 1930s as a Communist and with Soviet citizenship and Jewish ethnicity Schulhoff was in danger. He was taken to the internment camp at Wülzburg and he died there, from Tuberculosis in 1942.

Schulhoff’s music demonstrates the growing movement in Europe known as the New Objectivity. Listeners are given a stark representation of reality and not infrequently made to feel uncomfortable and disturbed as a result. The influences from working with jazz musicians and experimenters with sound machines and home-made instruments show in some of Schulhoff’s compositions and these have been labelled “functionalist music”.

A comment made in 1924 at the first performance about Five Pieces for String Quartet praised the music’s human and technical worth but at the same time Schulhoff’s ability not to take himself too seriously. This is evident in today’s performance 100 years later.

The five short movements have titles of well known dances and they look back towards the Baroque dance suites. These were character pieces written for entertainment and which did not require deep concentration. Schulhoff’s pieces have an edginess and nervy energy which belies their titles and assumed moods. Here, there is evidence that Schulhoff developed compositionally far beyond what he had been taught and his use of the four stringed instruments is closer to that of Bartók than Reger or Debussy, his early teachers.

The Serenata shows the influence of drones in folk traditions and they have a rhythmic function here. Bartók’s influence is clear in the Czeca movement. The Tango is relatively relaxed with longer melodic lines and a more open texture. This is more sensual as expected. There are no clichés though and it is less catchy than some of Schulhoff’s jazz Piano pieces. The Tarantella is derived from the Italian word Tarantole, the name for the Tarantula spider. The energy here is redolent of the creature indeed ! The Tarantella dance of the spider, from Puglia Southern Italy, describes the effect of the bite of the Tarantula spider. The victim dances themselves into a frenzy and then collapses with exhaustion. Musical accompaniment and incitement is given by Mandolines, Guitars and Tambourines playing furiously.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) String Quartet in D min D.810 (Death & the Maiden) (1824)

Allegro
Andante con moto
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Presto 

Though composed in the same year as the A-minor “Rosamunde” quartet, the opening four bars of this D minor quartet set it in a different world from Rosamunde’s understated charms.  The hammered out fortissimo triplet figure (illustrated) demands our serious attention, but is immediately transformed into an almost apologetically tender pianissimo phrase (illustrated).  After a pause, the tension mounts, driven by the triplets, to a reinforced version of the opening.  This emotional roller-coaster continues throughout the movement.  The triplets sometimes give way to the dotted rhythm of a yearning tune (illustrated) that Jack Westrup attributes to Schubert’s admiration for Rossini;  this theme in turn gets transformed into more serious matter against running semiquavers.  The emotional intensity and tightness of construction of the movement recall the later Beethoven but it was written the year before the first of Beethoven’s late quartets.  The repeated notes of the opening bars and their rhythm are echoed in the themes of the other three movements.

The theme for the variations of the G minor Andante con moto comes from Death’s contribution to a short Schubert song of 1817, inviting a terrified young girl to sleep safely in his arms.  The quartet version is lighter: a fourth higher and con moto.  The  calm of the first two variations is shattered by the brutal dactyls (–˅˅) of the third, in a more rapid version of the rhythm of the theme; calm returns only to be broken again by the long crescendo of the repeat of the fifth variation to yet more terrifying dactyls.  The terror subsides to a serene end and a Schubert-hallmark switch to the major.

The fiercely syncopated energy of the Scherzo contrasts with a  tranquil Trio, whose D-major theme (illustrated) is  related to the work’s opening.  The Scherzo leads to the tarantella-form Presto finale.  The tarantella folk-dance hails from Taranto in southern Italy: a courting couple dance encircled by others as the music gets faster and faster.  Taranto independently gave its name to the tarantula spider, the effects of whose allegedly serious bite could, it was thought, be ameliorated by wild dancing.  Pepys records tales of itinerant fiddlers cashing in on this belief especially during the harvest when bites were more frequent.  It is quite possible that Schubert intends the allusion to cheating death, but either way this energetic dance with its prestissimo ending provides a rousing climax to the quartet.

Programme notes by Chris Darwin (Haydn and Schubert) and Helen Simpson (Schulhoff).

See Chris Darwin’s Programme Notes for other works on his web page.

W.A. Mozart (1756-1791) String Quartet in G K.387 (1782)

Allegro vivace assai
Minuetto & Trio – Allegro
Andante Cantabile
Molto Allegro 

The early 1780s were a time of great change for Mozart. Continue reading 14th April 2024 – Kleio Quartet – Programme notes