GREAT STRING QUARTETS. Session Two, March 29, 2017

Transcription

1 GREAT STRING QUARTETS Session Two, March 29, 2017 Let begin today s class with your comments and questions about the Haydn, Mozart, and Gossec string quartets we listened to during the past week. JUILLIARD STRING QUARTET, This week we highlight the Juilliard String Quartet, the best known, most admired American string quartet of the past half-century. Since 1947 it has been the string quartet in residence at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. It has recorded all the major works of the string quartet literature and has championed the works of many leading 20 th century composers. SESSION TWO: BEETHOVEN, REICHA, AND SCHUBERT Today s session will focus on the string quartets of Beethoven, Reicha, and Schubert. GENERATIONS Haydn and Mozart were the leading string quartet composers of the first and second generations of the classical-romantic era. Today s quartets are from the third generations (Beethoven and Reicha) and fourth generation (Schubert). These quartets were composed in 1804, 1806 and WHO PLAYED QUARTETS, AND WHERE? Who played Beethoven and Schubert string quartets? Where did they play them? Who was the audience? Concerts in private venues were still popular New public concert halls were being built in cities throughout Europe A growing number of subscription concerts were held; anyone could purchase tickets in advance Most string quartets were performed by amateur musicians playing at sight or occasionally, after an informal rehearsal or two. Beethoven s and Schubert s quartets were so difficult that they required extensive practice and rehearsal time; professional (paid) quartets were created and supported by wealthy patrons. Here are two examples of new concert venues in Beethoven s time:

2 THEATER AN DER WEIN, VIENNA, 1801 This brand-new facility contained an artist s apartment, where Beethoven lived briefly. The first performances of many of his most famous compositions were held here ROYAL OPERA HOUSE, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, 1810 This was the largest, most modern opera house in Europe, and was home to many symphonic and music concerts as well. WHAT WAS IN STYLE? The era of Haydn, Mozart, and Gossec is often characterized as genteel: polite, well-bred, refined or elegant. Genteel were the large salons in which these quartets were performed, and genteel were the audiences invited to hear them. In contrast, the era of Beethoven, Reicha and Schubert is often characterized as revolutionary. Two other common, and perhaps better, names for the period are the Age of Napoleon and the Age of Romanticism No wonder the music of this generation sounds so different: clarity gave way to ambivalence; moderation was replaced by more extremes forms of expression: greater length and complexity, more extreme passions (joy, despair) and more extreme ways of expressing them fast tempos become faster, slow tempos, slower; loud passages become louder, soft passages softer, etc. LENGTH OF QUARTETS This slide shows the dramatic increase in length of string quartets in these four generations: Haydn Quartet, minutes Mozart Quartet, minutes Beethoven Quartet, minutes Schubert Quartet, minutes THE IMPACT OF NAPOLEON The advent of Napoleon resulted in widespread social and political tension and conflict. The larger format and greater intensity of feeling in the string quartets of Beethoven and Schubert is related to the heightened political and social unrest of their times. THE NOBLE SAVIOR Haydn and Mozart lived during the age of the Enlightenment, a philosophical, anti-church and anti-nobility movement in central Europe that valued virtue, reason, freedom, personal excellence, and ethical action According to the Enlightenment, the ideal leader would be one who embodied all these virtues.

3 He would be a noble savior, the great public hero who could rescue the world from the problems that plague it. The area around Bonn, where Beethoven grew up, was deeply imbued with these ideals. When Beethoven was a teenager this ideal suddenly became a flesh-and-blood reality with the appearance of Napoleon Bonaparte. His sudden rise from humble beginnings, his seeming lack of pretense and personal ambition, and his extraordinary brilliance as a military leader, captivated Beethoven s imagination, and that of millions of people throughout Europe. THE MILITARY GENIUS Born into a lower-class family, like Beethoven, Napoleon rose rapidly on his own merit to command the vast army of France. As a military leader he seemed unstoppable, and he did it all under the Enlightenment banner of freedom, virtue, and personal excellence. To many Europeans he seemed to possess magical powers; they had not seen his like ever before. Not only did Napoleon seem to personify Enlightenment values, but his seemingly limitless political skill seemed to promise that Europe, or at least France, might soon be ruled by a leader who was wise, just, and fair. THE FIRST CONSUL That fond wish seemed to be fulfilled as Napoleon returned to Paris in triumph after winning decisive military battles and stepped into the political role of First Consul the most important of three senior advisors to the French government. Immediately he began to reform and modernize the territories he had conquered. Liberal policies of every kind were rapidly put into place. The transformation of Europe seemed to be at hand. As one modern historian puts it: The ideas that underpin our modern world meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education, sound finances, and so on were championed, consolidated, codified and geo-graphically extended by Napoleon. To them he added a rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman Empire. THE EMPEROR But two years after Beethoven moved to Vienna, Napoleon had himself crowned Emperor of France, and with this single act he seemed to have refuted all the lofty Enlightenment values in favor of personal ambition. Liberals and idealists throughout Europe felt betrayed, shocked and disillusioned. DEFEAT, DISILLUSION, PRIVATIZATION After Napoleon s final military defeat in 1814, his empire and its liberal policies unraveled quickly. Spain and Russia were liberated from French occupation. In

4 France itself, the monarchy was restored, and Catholicism as the state religion. Prussia, whose vast army was largely responsible for his defeat, became the dominant power in central Europe. And everywhere there was a bitter, almost universal disillusionment, not just with Napoleon himself, but with all politics and all political leaders. In the following decades people generally turned their attention away from public matters and focused instead on private, personal concerns. HAYDN S GRAND DESIGN Despite the major social and political upheavals of the Age of Napoleon, Beethoven and Schubert continued to use Haydn s Grand Design, his pattern of contrasting movements and themes: Four Contrasting Movements: A fast first movement, a slower second movement, a dance-like third movement, usually a minuet and trio, and a fast final movement. Equality of voices: No single instrument dominates. Each instrument may play a solo or the leading melody, and each may also accompany the others as they take the lead. Depth of expression: To vary the mood or emotional content of his quartets Haydn experiments with expressive techniques such as solo cadences, very loud or very soft endings, or bold sections in which all four instruments play the same notes at the same time. Constantly changing textures: The texture of music is a description of how many sounds we can hear at the same time and how far apart they are spaced. Haydn was a master of using a variety of different textures, including: 1 instrument plays a melody while the other instruments are silent(solo); 1 instrument plays a melody and 1, 2, or 3 others play an accompaniment; two instruments play the same rhythm (duet) while the other 2 rest; three instrument play a melody while the 4 th rests or plays something different; all 4 instruments play the same notes and the same rhythms (tutti); all the instruments play different melodies at the same time (counterpoint). BEETHOVEN, Beethoven was the greatest, most admired composer of his generation. He excelled in almost every musical genre: symphony, concertos, piano sonatas, and string quartets. Beethoven wrote 16 string quartets, at first adopting, and later extending, the Haydn s Grand Design.

5 BEETHOVEN S INNOVATIONS Every generation builds on the music if the preceding one, contributing something characteristic or unique, something not present in earlier music. Beethoven s greatest innovation is a higher level of emotional intensity, achieved through: longer movements and greater overall length insistent, repetitive patterns dramatic pauses sudden, abrupt, changes between loud and soft, between fast and slow, between thick and thin textures. STRING QUARTET IN F MAJOR, 1806 This is the first in a remarkable set of three string quartets known collectively as the Razumovsky quartets, commissioned by Count Andrei Razumovsky, the Russian Ambassador to Vienna and one of Beethoven s greatest patrons. In more ways than one it is a landmark piece in the history of the string quartet. Like many landmark compositions, the public response to these quartets was decidedly mixed. According to an 1807 critic, "Three new, very long and difficult Beethoven string quartets are attracting the attention of all connoisseurs. The conception is profound and the construction excellent, but they are not easily comprehended. A typical performance lasts about 42 minutes, an unprecedented length for a string quartet. Concert-goers were not the only ones baffled. String players found these quartets so difficult technically that few could play them at all, and the best players could do so only after long periods of practicing their individual parts and rehearsing together. This problem lead Beethoven s long-time friend Ignatz Schuppanzigh to form the first professional string quartet with the financial support of Count Razumovsky. The funds he provided allowed the quartet time to practice and rehearse this and other difficult new quartets. The louder sound, greater drama, and more virtuosic style of this quartet, and its greater length, were particularly suited for performance in the new, larger concert halls then being built in cities throughout Europe. These halls would accommodate much larger audiences of music lovers who would purchase tickets ahead of time, as we still do today. PRINCE ANDRED RASUMOVSKY RASUMOVSKY PALACE, VIENNA

6 OVERALL PLAN Allegro Fast 10:16 Allegretto vivace Medium 9:01 Adagio Slow 12:47 Allegro Medium Overall Duration 9:15 42:28 MUSICIANS Four advanced students from the New England Conservatory, Boston. PLAY 1 ST MOVEMENT PLAY 2nd MOVEMENT BREAK SCHUBERT In his brief life of 31 years Schubert wrote 15 string quartets. Some of them are early, experiment works written for his musical brothers and father to play at home. Several of the later quartets are masterpieces of the string quartet literature that explore the extreme emotional states of the romantic era. ROMANTICISM The Romantic Movement began in the 1780s as an attempt to correct the rational, intellectual principles of the Enlightenment. The works of early romantic poets, including Wordsworth, Coleridge-Taylor, Keats, Shelley, and Robert Burns, were immediately translated into German and became universally popular among the fast-growing German middle class. The rise of Romanticism focused on the inner life, the life of the imagination. In all the arts, the Enlightenment values of reason, clarity, and balance became less important. Romantic composers were primarily interested in expressing not balance but the life of passion, not clarity but ambivalence, not moderate emotions but more extreme emotional states. The most popular subject matter of these poems included nature, novelty, death, and the immediate, fleeting emotional life of individuals. THE ERL-KING, 1815 An outstanding example of early Romantic music is Schubert s wonderful song, The Erlking.

7 TEXT Who rides, so late, through night and wind? It is the father with his child. He has the boy well in his arm He holds him safely, he keeps him warm. "My son, why do you hide your face in fear?" "Father, do you not see the Erl-king? The Erl-king with crown and cape?" "My son, it's a streak of fog." "You dear child, come, go with me! (Very) beautiful games I play with you; Many a colorful flower is on the beach, My mother has many a golden robe." "My father, my father, and hearest you not, What the Erl-king quietly promises me?" "Be calm, stay calm, my child; Through scrawny leaves the wind is sighing." "Do you, fine boy, want to go with me? My daughters shall wait on you finely; My daughters lead the nightly dance, And rock and dance and sing to bring you in." "My father, my father, and don't you see there The Erl-king's daughters in the gloomy place?" "My son, my son, I see it clearly: There shimmer the old willows so grey." "I love you, your beautiful form entices me; And if you're not willing, then I will use force." "My father, my father, he's touching me now! The Erl-king has done me harm!" It horrifies the father; he swiftly rides on, He holds the moaning child in his arms, Reaches the farm with great difficulty; In his arms, the child was dead. The performance is by the wonderful young bass-baritone, Philippe Sly. STRING QUARTET IN D MINOR, 1824

8 Now let s turn to a Schubert string quartet. Its nickname is Death and the Maiden, because the second movement is based on the melody of a Schubert some of that name. Imagine a piece with the emotional intensity of The Erl- King but without a text, which extends in time from 4 minutes to 36 minutes! Like the song, this quartet is a study in extremes. It is preoccupied with the theme of death, more specifically, with the fear of death and the struggle to avoid it. For much of 1824 Schubert was very ill, some scholars believe with an outburst of tertiary stage syphilis, and in May had to be hospitalized. He was also without money; his latest opera was a flop. In a letter to a friend, he wrote, Think of a man whose health can never be restored, and who from sheer despair makes matters worse instead of better. Think, I say, of a man whose brightest hopes have come to nothing, to whom love and friendship are but torture, and whose enthusiasm for the beautiful is fast vanishing; and ask yourself if such a man is not truly unhappy. With this piece the string quartet had become a vehicle for conveying to the world a composer s inner struggles. For Schubert, who lived a life suspended between the lyrical, romantic, charming and the dramatic, chaotic, and depressive, the string quartet offered a medium in which to express his essentially lyric themes with his feeling for high drama and the expression of extreme contrasting moods and emotions. Although this quartet is not based on a specific story or narrative, it does have an overall theme. The theme is the struggle with death, with all its bleakness, foreboding, terror, pain, and resignation, is present in three of the four movements: OVERALL PLAN This quartet again follows Haydn s Grand Design. Allegro Fast 11:32 Andante con moto Medium slow 10:46 Scherzo Very fast 3:31 Presto MUSICIANS Very fast Overall Duration 9:51 35:36

9 This performance of the Schubert quartet is by the celebrated Alban Berg String Quartet, one of the leading quartets of the late 20 th century. It is best known for its performances and recordings of the quartets of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. PLAY 3 RD MOVEMENT PLAY 4 TH MOVEMENT BONUS On our class website you will find a link to an 1804 string quartet by the highly respected Czech composer Anton Reicha, who was an exact contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven. It s an excellent piece with much of the intensity and passion of Beethoven and Schubert, and a rewarding piece to listen to.