Untitled Document

August 10, 2010

Program Notes
by Will Hertz

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
String Quartet in D Minor, Op. 76, No. 2, "Quinten”

Over a period of 40 years Haydn wrote nearly 70 string quartets, transforming the light-weight divertimento, designed more for entertainment than serious music-making, into the challenging core form of the chamber-music repertory. The "Quinten” quartet was the second in that remarkable series of eight quartets – six published as Opus 76 and two as Opus 77--that constituted Haydn's final word on the form.

The eight quartets were composed in the 1790s after Haydn had returned to Vienna from two extended visits to London. His experiences in England had been the most rewarding of his life, artistically and financially. He had been honored at court, lionized in the concert halls and ballrooms, awarded an honorary degree at Oxford, and compensated generously for his music. In response, he had composed and conducted his twelve greatest symphonies, those numbered from 93 through 104, and soon they were in demand throughout the continent.

Haydn was now the most famous composer in Europe, and his international earnings assured him an unprecedented degree of economic security. But he was not content to rest on his laurels. For one thing, he had been overwhelmed in London by the oratorios of Handel, and soon he was at work on his own oratorio masterpieces, The Creation and The Seasons. For another, Haydn's reputation inevitably led to a brisk business in teaching and free-lance composing.

Among his commissions, in 1796, was one for six quartets from Count Joseph Erdödy, a Hungarian aristocrat and the brother-in-law of Haydn's patron, Prince Anton Esterhazy. The quartets were written the following year and initially performed in the count's drawing room, and in 1799 they were published as Opus 76. These works set still new standards of subtlety and originality, and rank among the greatest works in the chamber-music literature.

The second quartet of Opus 76 is, in many ways, the most remarkable in Haydn’s total output. The work is, first of all, a continuing demonstration of the power of contrast between the major and minor modes. In the first movement, the first theme is in D minor, the second in F major. The second movement consists of a section in minor sandwiched between two major sections, with a coda combining both elements. The main section of the minuet is in the minor, with the trio in a startling major. The fourth movement is predominantly minor, but there is an abrupt shift to the major after the restatement of the main theme.

Even more noteworthy is the structure of the first movement – an astounding demonstration of what a resourceful composer can do with the simplest of materials. In this instance, the building block is the downward fifth – the interval between so and do. Both the first and second themes are based on that interval, and the working out of the themes leans heavily on its repetition, upward as well as downward, in a variety of guises but always with clarity and power. This, of course, is the source of the quartet’s nickname, German for “The Fifths.”

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After so forceful a first movement, the second provides some relaxation – it is, in fact, a throwback to the violin-dominated divertimento of Haydn’s early days. With the third movement, however, Haydn ventures to the frontier in what musicologist Donald Francis Tovey termed “the most imaginative minuet before Schubert.” The main section is a two-part canon (that is, a round with overlapping entrances) between, on the one hand, the two violins playing in octaves, and, on the other hand, the viola and cello, also in octaves. This structure and the resulting tonal coloration were unprecedented in quartet-writing, and with the vigorous rhythm earned for the movement the subtitle “witches minuet.”

The finale suggests a Hungarian folk dance in its use of syncopation and the sustained harmonic with which the first violin ends the opening phrase. The high point of the movement comes in the coda when the first violin returns with the main theme, transformed from minor to major and with the cessation of all rhythmic movement in the accompanying second violin and viola. This somber change of mood is short-lived, and the quartet builds to an exuberant ending.

Anton Arensky (1861-1906)
String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35

In the second half of the 19th century, two schools of composition emerged in Russia. One group, known as “The Five”, consisted of Balakirev, Cui, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. It was nationalist in outlook, deriving much of its inspiration from Russian folk elements, history and literature. The other group, led by Anton Rubinstein and exemplified by Tchaikovsky, was more cosmopolitan, seeking to temper Russian cultural influences with musical ideas imported from elsewhere in Europe.

Reflecting his varied career, Arensky had a foot in both camps. He started out in the former group as a student of Rimsky-Korsakov at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. On graduation, however, he joined the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory where Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein were older and highly influential colleagues. While in Moscow, moreover, he became conductor of the Russian Choral Society and a member of the council of the Synodal School of Church Music, strengthening his commitment to Russian musical tradition.

Finally, in 1894 he was named director of the Imperial chapel back in St. Petersburg. He retired six years later with a generous pension and planned to devote his time to concertizing and composing. Unfortunately, Arensky had struggled with alocholism and a gambling addiction his entire adult life; his habits now became more dissolute, and he died of tuberculosis at the age of 45.

Arensky's musical output reflected his experience in both schools of composition. On the one hand, he wrote three operas and a number of songs and choral works in the nationalist mold, making considerable use of folk melodies and idioms. On the other hand, he modeled his instrumental music after that of Tchaikovsky, using the non-Russian musical forms developed by Haydn and Mozart and continued by Western Europe's romantic composers, particularly Chopin and Mendelssohn.

This three-movement quartet, written in 1894 after the move back to St. Petersburg, merged both orientations. He dedicated the work to the memory of Tchaikovsky, his mentor and friend, and incorporated in the music Russian orthodox funeral chants. However, he cast the first movement in conventional sonata form, using such a chant as the main theme and retaining its somber, funereal
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atmosphere in the development.

You may recognize the theme of the second movement – Tchaikovsky’s “Legend”, one of his Children’s Songs, Op. 54. The movement consists of seven variations – at times moving, at times witty – on this theme. A muted coda recalls the Russian chant from the first movement. The movement was arranged by Arensky for string orchestra and may be more frequently performed in that format than in the original.

Arensky begins the last movement with a another theme from a Russian funeral mass. This leads to the patriotic Russian hymn Slava! (Glory) associated with the coronation of the Tsar and developed here fugally. This theme was also used by Mussorgsky in the opera Boris Godunov and by Beethoven in his second “Rasumovsky” String Quartet.

The quartet is unusual in calling for two cellos and only one violin. The use of two low-register instruments seemed appropriate for an “in Memoriam” work and the use of Russian liturgical chants.

Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Piano Trio in E Minor, Op. 90, “Dumky”

In 1892, Dvořák, now world famous as a composer, accepted an invitation to become the director of the new National Conservatory of Music in New York. As things turned out, he became acutely homesick, and after three years he resigned and returned home to Prague. At the time of his departure, however, he fully expected to settle permanently in the United States, and he undertook a “farewell” 40-concert tour of Bohemia and Moravia, accompanied by two colleagues from the Prague conservatory, violinist Ferdinand Lachner and cellist Hanus Wihan.

As the centerpiece for the tour, Dvořák chose the work in which he most poignantly expressed his love for his motherland and its musical culture – his “Dumky” Trio. Completed in February, 1891, the work had been premiered at a concert in April, 1891, celebrating Dvořák’s honorary doctorate from Prague’s Charles University. It was then published in 1894 while Dvořák was in the United States, with his friend Brahms taking time out from his own work to read and correct the proofs.

Dumky is the plural of dumka, a Slavonic word with a long etymological history. Originally it meant to meditate or brood. In the Ukraine, the term took on the additional meaning of a “lament” or pensive folk ballad about deeds of heroism in bygone days. Still later, a dumka became a sorrowful instrumental work, often followed by a wildly joyful dance called a furiant. This pairing of two sharply contrasting moods spread throughout central Europe, becoming particularly characteristic of folk music in Poland and Bohemia.

Dvořák used the term dumka for the blending of such contrasting melancholy and joyful elements within one piece, thus providing a vehicle for his emotionally complex temperament. In this sense, he composed a number of dumky, both as short pieces in themselves or as movements in a longer work. Examples include his Slavonic Dance No. 2 and the slow movements of his String Quartet, Op. 51, and Piano Quintet, Op. 81.

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In his “Dumky” Trio, Dvořák went further, writing a piece consisting entirely of dumky. There are, in fact, six of them, each in a different key and with its own distinct individuality and tonal coloring. The first, second, third and sixth dumky follow the traditional pattern of a slow, melancholy or pensive section followed by a fast, exuberant one. In the fourth and fifth dumky, the contrasts come between the two movements.

This unique format made it impossible for Dvořák to follow the convention established by Haydn of using traditional sonata form, with its emphasis on thematic development, for at least one movement. The trio as a whole, however, has a structural unity roughly like a conventional four-movement composition.

The first three dumky are linked together without pause, and are thus parallel to a conventional first movement. The fourth dumka is dominated by a slow melancholy melody presented by the cello over a piano ostinato figure, and is like a slow movement. The fifth dumka is more energetic and playful, like a scherzo. The final dumka, after a somber introduction, is alternatively wild and quietly expressive, not unlike a traditional rondo, bringing this remarkable piece to a brilliant whirling close.