Home

Our 2010--2011
Season

Past Seasons:
2009--2010
2008--2009
2007--2008
2006--2007
2005--2006
2004--2005

Subscriptions
and Tickets

Contact Us

1772 found Haydn in the middle of his third compositional period, often referred to as his "Romantic Crisis" or his "Sturm und Drang" period. It seems odd that such passionate works should emanate from him at this time, for 1772 also found him in the middle of his luxurious residency as Kapellmeister at the Esterházy castle, summer home of Prince Nicholas the Magnificent. His six Opus 20 string quartets are exquisite and beautifully wrought; on the other hand, they often venture into strange, dark territory.

The third quartet in the series, in the key of G minor begins with a stern theme and clearly articulated rhythm, and yet something feels askew. In counting, we discover that the phrase is an asymmetrical seven bars long, rather than the traditional eight. In lopping off a bar, Haydn forces us not to take everything so seriously; the theme is stern and fiery, but it is also observing itself being stern and fiery. Another concrete example of the movement's self-awareness is the way in which it interrupts itself mid-phrase, softly and hilariously, in the development.

The second movement is, uncharacteristically, a minuet; Haydn reversed the traditional order for the inner movements. This time, instead of seven-bar phrases, we get just as asymmetrical five-bar phrases. Intimations of major keys sound like glimmers of hope, but, although the minuet actually ends in the parallel major, we are convinced that it is merely the unresolved dominant to C minor. As such, the trio, in E-flat major, feels like a Schubertian modulation, and the second violin's melody sounds all the sweeter for having delivered us from the clutches of minor modes.

The third movement contains the special marking "mezza voce" (half voice). While it is actually in pretty strict sonata form, it has the appearance of a wandering fantasy. The cello plays a large role here, taking us through pain and suffering to the peaceful bliss on the other side. The movement also invokes a special texture, employed by the first violin at the close of the exposition and by the viola at the close of the piece; open strings are alternated with the same note stopped on the next lower string. The sound, which in Bach's Sixth Cello Suite is like a joyously ringing bell, here is resonant but muted and internal.

In the finale, Haydn's wit resurfaces. For starters, it is the second violin which begins the movement, initiating yet another irregular melody in fits and starts. The second theme, introduced by the cello, is basically the same as the first, but in the key of the relative major. The question thus becomes how to resolve this one theme over the course of the movement; it has been started many times, in many keys and by all four voices, but it has never really been put to rest. In the end, though, the issue is moot, for the music's answer is to evaporate into thin air.

In the summer of 1917, at the spa town of Luhacovice, in Moravia, Leos Janá:cek, 62, fell madly in love with Kamila Stösslová, 25. For the next eleven years, until his death, Janácek would churn out one masterpiece after the next, each inspired by his passion for Kamila. His second string quartet was written in the last year of his life, and it represents the culmination of this passion.

Both Janácek and Stösslová were married to other people. They also lived in different cities: he in Brno, and she in Písek. The physical extent of their relationship was minimal at best. Kamila's letters to Janácek (the ones that remain) are decidedly reserved. She addresses him formally, and only makes vague references to whatever affection she feels for him. It seems that the entire burning love was inside Janácek's head. He composed piece after piece with her as the unofficial focus, but she never really reciprocated. And perhaps it was better for his art that she remain pure and unattainable to him, for a muse ceases to inspire if she doesn't frustrate.

Janácek began writing the quartet in late January of 1928, and he completed it about three weeks later. Its original title was to be "Love Letters," but he changed it to avoid creating a scandal; he wrote to Kamila, "I do not deliver my feelings to the tender mercies of fools." That said, the quartet was a musical documentation of his love for her. The first movement conveys "the impression when I saw you for the first time." The second movement, he thought, would "flare up in the Luhacovice heat" -- it features the viola (originally, the viola d'amore or, as Janácek was happy to point out, the "viola of love").

The third movement depicts the day "when the earth trembled," and Janácek told Kamila he loved her -- "for it seemed that the earth burst open when I said it to her and she was silent, she ran and stood still again, I stood and ran after her again -- yes, just like the birds do -- who don't lie about love." Poor woman. The movement then departs from that scene: "Let it be ... very cheerful and then dissolve into a vision which would resemble your image, transparent, as if in a mist."

The last movement depicts "a great yearning -- and, as it were, its fulfillment." It starts as a raucous country dance, but the dance keeps getting interrupted by other things -- themes from previous movements in various disguises (and sometimes overlaid), and a series of trilled triplets which eventually takes over the piece and sends it hurtling to its conclusion. The effect of the ending is truly staggering: Janácek has ripped his heart out in ecstasy and is wielding it, bloody and throbbing, over his head.

Felix Mendelssohn completed his first string quartet, which remains without an opus number, in 1823, at the age of fourteen. The work, in E-flat major, is the output of a very gifted student, but not a mature composer. Two years later, however, he produced his Octet for Strings, and it was clear that, at the age of sixteen, Mendelssohn had come into his own and had mastered the technical aspects of composition.

In another two years, Mendelssohn turned eighteen, and he wrote a song based on a text by J. G. Droyson called "Frage" ("Question"). We can imagine the girl who inspired the song; the text reads, in part: "Is it true? Is it true that you are always waiting for me in the arbored walk ... she who feels with me and stays ever true to me?" The music from "Frage" frames Mendelssohn's Op. 13 quartet of the same year, and elements from "Frage" are found in every movement in the piece. In particular, the dotted rhythm and the melodic half step found in the song pervade the quartet.

Despite its connection to the song, the quartet is not simply the pining of a lovesick teenager. Beethoven died the same year Op. 13 was composed, and the work can also be seen as homage to him. Beethoven's influence is most obvious in the last movement, which closely resembles the last movement of Beethoven?' Op. 132, written two years prior. The recitative for the first violin, the opening melody, and the bass line in the cello part are too similar to Op. 132 to be coincidental. In addition, a fugato section in the second movement (which is based on the half step from "Frage") closely resembles the fugato section in the second movement of Beethoven's Op. 95 quartet. Scholars also point out links to the Cavatina from Beethoven's Op. 130 quartet in the Adagio non lento and remark on the similarity of the quoted phrase "Is it true?" to Beethoven's "Must it be?" in his Op. 135 quartet.

Opus 13 is a dark piece at times, but it is not tragic in the Beethovenian sense. After the Adagio introduction in A major, with the "Frage" quote, we are spurred by a rumbling in the viola into a tumultuous Allegro vivace in A minor, whose theme is an expansion of the song's rhythmic motive. But despite the passionate outbursts, the nervous murmuring, and the wailing melodies, we can't help somehow relishing all this grief, in the same way that a teenager relishes the pangs of love. Similarly, the second movement drips with angst, but it is deliciously sweet. The Intermezzo is in ternary form; a classic Mendelssohn scherzo is sandwiched between strains of an ancient-sounding song. The final movement, the stormy, youthful answer to Beethoven's Op. 132, yields to the opening "Frage" material in a way that might seem saccharine if it were not so sincere. As it is, we are left marveling at the deft emotional manipulation by the young genius, who somehow made us all believe that we were eighteen again, when the world still held unlimited potential and its colors seemed more vivid.