Home

Our 2008--2009
Season

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

Subscriptions
and Tickets

Contact Us

The "Lark" Quartet is one of the Tost Quartets, written in 1790 at the request of Johann Tost, a wealthy merchant who had been a violinist in Haydn's court orchestra at Esterhazy. It is not surprising, then, that from the opening measures where it plays the part of the lark, the first violin is given greater prominence than is usual in Haydn's quartets.

The earthbound staccato chords of the second violin, viola, and cello at the beginning of the Allegro moderato are answered by the first violin's soaring melody from which the quartet gets its nickname. The second subject of this sonata principle movement is richly expanded in the development section, and its climax is succeeded by a surprising event as the first subject "Lark" theme sails calmly in once more and begins a closely condensed double recapitulation, one of Haydn's many musical innovations.

The Adagio cantabile is characterized by an extended melody for first violin with a middle section in the minor key; the music of this contrasting section is based on the first theme. The movement ends with the first theme in variation.

Melvin Berger observes that the Menuetto opens with a humorous swagger that breaks the pensive mood of the Adagio cantabile. This opening is rustic, but more nuanced textures emerge as the music moves through major and minor keys until the trio's staccatos interrupt the menuet. After the trio (in the minor key), the buoyant Menuetto returns.

This quartet has also been nicknamed "The Hornpipe" because of the lively finale's resemblance to the English folkdance. Rushing sixteenth notes are heard in one instrument or another throughout this A-B-A form, a sparkling moto perpetuo with a fugato in the middle section. The quartet ends with a dashing coda.

A work of gentle melancholy, this quartet was composed in 1827, a year of personal sadness for the eighteen-year-old composer. Three events -- the death of a friend stricken with an incurable illness, his first public failure in the performance of his opera The Wedding of Camacho, and the death of Beethoven -- influenced the passionate and poignant music he composed in Op. 13. The opening theme, which colors the entire work and which comes back strongly restated at its conclusion, is the theme of Mendelssohn's song Op. 9, No.1 "Ist es wahr?" ("Is it True?"). The song was inspired by the opening line of a poem by Mendelssohn's close friend, Johann Gustav Droyson: "Is it true that you are always waiting for me in the arbored walk?" The opening three-note phrase of the song becomes the germinal melodic cell of the quartet. This motto permeates the entire quartet, sometimes in direct quotation, more often by recalling its rhythms (long/short-long) or its intervals.

By 1827 Beethoven's music was out of fashion. Rossini was the hero of the day, and Carl Maria Von Weber, among others -- including Mendelssohn's father -- viewed Beethoven's late quartets as the ravings of a cranky, deaf, old man. Not so the young Mendelssohn; he found the quartets to be intellectual, spiritual, and technical marvels, and he made a careful study of them; the effects of that study are evident in the Op. 13 quartet.

The notes for a 2004 concert of the Pacifica Quartet explain the quartet's connection to Beethoven: Although the work is based on Mendelssohn's song, "it is Beethoven's ghost that hovers over the quartet." The introductory Adagio recalls the haunting theme of the Lebewohl motif in Beethoven's piano sonata Les Adieux, Op. 81, written in 1809, and the main theme of the Allegro vivace brings to mind the Quartet, Op. 132. "The first theme of the Adagio non lento" combines memories of "Ist es Wahr?" with elements of the Cavatina movement from Beethoven's Quartet, Op. 130. The anguished fugue that dramatically follows the Adagio and reappears in the coda of the slow movement and in the final movement has a clear antecedent in Beethoven's Op. 95 quartet.

The Intermezzo presents a beautifully simple melody sung by the violin over pizzicato accompaniment; the much faster, whispered trio is one of Mendelssohn's trademark "elfin" scherzos, fleeting and delicate. The opening melody and trio theme blend in the coda that concludes the movement.

The violin recitative that opens the Presto evokes the fourth movement of Beethoven's Op. 132, and the Presto's review of the themes of the previous three movements reminds us of Beethoven's tactic in the finale of the Ninth Symphony. At the very end of this vigorous movement Mendelssohn brings back the introduction to the quartet, but this time he allows it to continue with a melody that comes closest to the "Ist es Wahr?" song setting. Thus, the quartet comes full circle to the calm of its opening movement.

In the summer of 1917, Janacek, a 63-year-old composer little known outside his homeland, met Kamila Stosslova, a beautiful, twenty-five-year-old married woman with a small child, and fell madly in love with her. Over the final eleven years of his life, she was the inspiration for an outpouring of masterpieces by the aging composer: four operas, two string quartets, a mass, tremendous orchestral works, and numerous choral and chamber pieces -- as well as 600 letters written to her. Janacek's love for Kamila was entirely platonic -- and one sided. Mystified by the composer's passion, she responded with affectionate friendship and encouragement, content to serve as Janacek's muse. Fortunately her husband was understanding -- unlike Janacek's furiously jealous wife.

Janacek said that all of his late works were, at some level, an expression of his love for Kamila, and the second string quartet made that love explicit. During the winter of 1928 he composed the quartet in just three weeks. He originally nicknamed it "Love Letters," but later decided to call it by its now familiar name.

In his letters Janaeck explained that each movement had a particular programme. The opening movement was inspired by his first meeting with Kamila at a health spa in the summer of 1917. In the second movement the composer contemplates the vision of Kamila giving birth to a son and considers the boy's future. Marked contrasts of mood characterize the third movement, which Janecek described as "melting into a vision of you." This movement explores two themes through tempos and textures that vary continuously. The final movement expresses Janacek's "fear for you -- however it eventually sounds not as fear, but as longing and fulfillment." "Intimate Letters," he tells Kamila, "was written in fire."

This music is passionate and intense, characteristic of Janacek's extremely compressed late style. Themes tend to be short; tempos shift abruptly in this tightly unified music where even accompaniment figures have thematic importance.

The viola, which assumes the persona of Kamila, has a dominant role in the quartet. The full-blooded opening -- a fortissimo trill in the cello and an opening theme in the violins -- gives way to the first true theme. An eerie unsettling melody, it appears in the viola with Janacek's instructions to play it sul ponticello (on the bridge). The theme recurs many times in the movement, which shifts between the lyrical and the harshly dramatic. The movement, Janaeck said, reflected Kamila's disquieting arrival in his life.

The contrasting Adagio is based largely on the opening melody presented in the viola; the movement rises to a climax marked Maestoso (majestically) before closing. The Moderato begins with a lilting dance in 9/8, followed by a lyric violin duet. The climax of this movement is stunning: the music comes to a stop, after which the first violin rips out a stabbing entrance on its highest E -- marked appassionato -- in an explosive variation of the preceding duet tune. The concluding Allegro, a rondo, gets off to a good-natured start with a theme that sounds as if it might have folk origins, but it is Janacek's creation. Characterized by frequent mood and tempo changes, and driven by furious trills and other ornaments, the music brings the quartet to an impassioned close.