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In our October concert the Panocha String Quartet played one of Haydn's Op. 33 Russian Quartets, quartets that signaled revolutionary new directions in the development of the genre. The work that opens tonight's program reflects Mozart's admiration for his predecessor's innovations, among them musical textures conceived not merely in four-part harmony but as four-part discourse in which all instruments are treated as equally important. From 1782 to 1785 Mozart composed six quartets which he dedicated to Haydn, whom he had met in 1781. Together with the string quartets of Haydn and Beethoven, Mozart's "Haydn Quartets" are considered the best exemplars of the classical quartet. Completed in 1783, K.428 is the third in the series.

The first movement of K. 428 does not open, as we might expect, with a straightforward thematic statement. Instead, the four instruments play an unharmonized melody in octaves with enough chromatic notes to obscure a firm statement of the movement's dominant key. A second passage with a distinctive rhythmic figure enters and succeeds in firmly announcing the home key. A repeat of the opening measures, now richly harmonized, sets the movement off into many playful, but restrained, contrapuntal conversations.

The melodies of the somber Andante are not particularly memorable, but the movement is noteworthy for its rich chromaticism. Leisurely and dreamlike, the music suggests a sense of yearning, its melodies stepping or leaping upward in close intervals to create the effect of musical sighs.

The Menuetto opens vigorously, providing the quartet its most forceful rhythmic impulse so far. Following two rousing chords, perhaps an invitation, the first violin dances into the movement. Light-heartedness prevails until the c minor Trio casts a shadow over the festivities. Its spare opening texture re-establishes the somber nature of the Andante, soon dispelled, however, by the cheery return of the Menuetto.

The final movement's rondo quickly changes the mood of the quartet. Its tunes are attractive and more memorable than those in earlier movements, and its rhythmic vitality propels the quartet forward with an almost impish good humor. Perhaps this movement, more than the others, recalls Haydn in its great wit and overall sturdiness.

The Seventh Quartet, the shortest among Shostakovich's fifteen works in the genre, was written in the spring of 1960 and is dedicated to his first wife Nina, who had died in 1954 and who would have turned fifty in 1960. The three movements of this small-scale quartet, eleven minutes in length, are played without interruption. One critic as observed that the quartet "reminds us of autumn colors with its deep emotional pathos and the excellence of its moving lyricism." A notable feature of the composition is the way in which Shostakovich used his themes to unify the musical structure.

The first violin launches the quartet with the opening theme of the Allegretto vivace, a rapidly falling phrase, described by Yoritoyo Inouye as "grotesque dance music." After the first theme is repeated four times, the cello announces the second theme, a vivacious dance to which the first violin responds in canonic imitation. A change in mood and key interrupts the movement in a duet for cello and first violin, the male and female voices of the quartet. As the duet ends, the first theme returns, all instruments now playing pizzicato. In keeping with the terse nature of the quartet, this movement, cast in sonata form but without a development section, lasts little more than three minutes.

Written mostly for two voices, the Lento is played throughout with the instruments muted. Soft arpeggios in the second violin set the stage for the first violin's statement of the elegiac theme in a high register. Then viola and cello sing a mysterious intermediate melody in octaves set against a rhythm played softly by the second violin. Eventually the first violin takes over the theme again, but the viola interrupts with an accompaniment figure that foreshadows the subject of the fugue that will open the third movement. Michael Wheeler imaginatively describes what happens next: "The music eventually falls into a numbed stillness, out of which it is roughly shaken by the wild energy of the finale. A savage fugue breaks out ... ."

Ascending fortissimo passages open the Allegro; the viola quietly answers with the theme of the second movement, but the ascending passages, strongly repeated, disrupt the momentary calm. With all mutes removed, "a raging torrential fugue" (Inouye) begins; it is a four-voiced fugue, although it moves at times in two or three voices. The themes of the second and first movement return as the music rushes toward a climax and then subsides. The music slows to allegretto as the muted violin starts a waltz in 3/4 time, its theme a variant of the fugue subject. The waltz soon vanishes pianissimo, and the opening theme of the first movement returns, now in pizzicato. It combines with the waltz theme as the music proceeds quietly to a simple cadence in the cello before it disappears completely.

Considered the musical heir of Beethoven, Brahms felt a great deal of pressure to live up to the achievements of the Master; consequently, he produced only a few works in the genres in which Beethoven excelled: the string quartet and the symphony. He wrote and destroyed some twenty string quartets and spent nearly two decades revising and polishing his first two quartets before they were published in 1873 when he was nearly forty. He did most of the work on the third quartet, Op. 67, in a happy summer in Heidelberg in 1875; of his three essays in the genre, it is the most humorous, and three of the four movements have their roots in the folk idioms Brahms loved.

The first movement sonata form opens happily with a hunting call, one of the common figures of classical music. It sets the tone for a quartet that recalls the music of Brahms' predecessors rather than his contemporaries Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner. The hunting call gives way to a second complementary theme and a third strain that is like a peasant dance. In the development section, Brahms gives all three themes a thorough workout before their restatement in the recapitulation rounds out the movement.

The only movement not based on folk idioms, the Andante is cast in simple ABA form. It opens with a melody that spins out over throbbing chords in the accompanying instruments. The serene mood is disrupted, but the melody returns to an even lusher accompaniment than before as the movement ends.

Although structured as a scherzo, the Agitato recalls the landler, an Austrian dance popular around 1800 and approximating the waltz. Surrounded by muted violins and cello, the husky-voiced viola (unmuted) takes the lead throughout. In the Trio the three muted instruments appear to introduce a new theme, but their music soon becomes the background for the return of the viola's theme. A restatement of the opening Agitato completes the movement.

The theme of the Finale's set of eight variations and coda recalls the Volkslied. The violins introduce the theme, and the whole movement follows in an orderly scheme. In the first two variations the viola seems unwilling to surrender the leadership role it enjoyed in the Agitato. In the third and fourth variations the first violin takes the lead, and the fifth and sixth variations go far afield harmonically. In the seventh variation a surprise occurs in the return of the hunt theme from the first movement; similarly, the eighth variation is based on material from the first movement. In the coda Brahms combines the themes of the first and fourth movements to bring the quartet full circle.