RUSSIAN STRING QUARTETS

Moderato 
Capriccio. Adagio 
Minuet. Allegretto 
Fuga a quattro soggetti 
 

By the time Haydn composed his six Op.20 String Quartets, in 1772, he had developed an innovative mastery of the form. In terms of novel designs and textures, these quartets are truly remarkable. Musicologist Donald Francis Tovey, writing about the Op.20 Quartets as a whole, described them as follows: ‘Every page of the six quartets of Op.20 is of historic and aesthetic importance … there is perhaps no single … opus in the history of instrumental music which has achieved so much’. He and others have argued convincingly that in this set of quartets – and the Op.33 set that followed nine years later – Haydn single-handedly defined what the medium of the quartet was capable of achieving. 

The first movement of Op.20 No.2 opens with the main theme on the cello, playing above the accompanment by the viola, and closely shadowed by the second violin, while the first violin plays nothing for the first six bars of the piece. In the development section, cello and first violin seem engaged in a kind of musical combat, while the movement almost fizzles out on a pianissimo cadence. After an austere unison opening, the slow movement, in C minor (itself quite unusual in a major key work), is again notable for the way in which the main ideas are shared between the parts, with the cello again taking a lead with the melodic ideas while the other strings play hushed semiquavers. But Haydn soon turns this movement into a turbulent musical drama – including violent contrasts between loud and soft – before introducing a gentler theme in E flat major on the first violin, accompanied by smooth quavers in the second violin and more animated, complex figuration in the viola. This movement leads without interruption into the Minuet, back in the home key of C major, but full of chromatic colouring, rhythmic ambiguities and unusual drones. The fugal finale on multiple themes is marked ‘sempre sotto voce’ (always hushed) – until the final outburst of the main fugue theme brings the work to its conclusion. This is another most unusual feature of this remarkable piece – a work of great beauty and power that is positively bristling with inventiveness. 

© Nigel Simeone 

Largo 
Allegro molto 
Allegretto 
Largo 
Largo 
 

The Eighth String Quartet is often considered to be a kind of musical autobiography, permeated throughout with Shostakovich’s musical monogram, D–S–C–H (D, E flat, C, B). In an interview with Elizabeth Wilson, the cellist Valentin Berlinsky (a founder member of the Borodin Quartet) said that it was ‘a landmark, the summing up of a whole period in the composer’s life. The quotations from the composer’s previous works give it the character of autobiography.’

The quartet was composed very quickly (from 12 to 14 July 1960) during a visit to Gohrish, near Dresden. The printed dedication is ‘In memory of the victims of fascism and war’. To his friend Isaak Glickman, Shostakovich wrote – in a letter dripping with irony – that it was ‘ideologically flawed and of no use to anybody’. But what followed was a remarkable and much more personal revelation: ‘When I die, it’s unlikely that someone will write a quartet dedicated to my memory, so I decided to write it myself. One could write on the title page: “Dedicated to the author of this quartet” … And the quartet makes use of themes from my own works.’ But for all the sardonic mood of this letter, the composer was in an extremely emotional state when he composed it. He told Glickman that ‘the pseudo-tragedy of the quartet is so great that, while composing it, my tears flowed abundantly.’

Just after his return from Dresden he played the work through to a friend in Moscow, admitting that it would be his ‘last work’ and even hinting that it was a kind of suicide note. He had just been coerced into joining the Soviet Communist party and was in a mood of utter despair. In other words, for Shostakovich, it seems that the real ‘victim’ he had in mind when composing this quartet was himself. Like the Third Quartet, the Eighth is in five movements, played without a break. These constitute a deeply moving and sometimes harrowing tapestry of violently shifting moods and musical self-quotations, all held together by the DSCH motif which seems to haunt the whole work. 

© Nigel Simeone 

String Quartet in E flat minor, Op.30
Andante sostenuto – Allegro moderato
Allegro vivo e scherzando
Andante funebre e doloroso ma con moto
Finale. Allegro non troppo e risoluto 

Tchaikovsky wrote his third and last string quartet in 1876, dedicating it to the memory of the violinist Ferdinand Laub (1832–1875). Though Czech, born and trained in Prague, Laub taught the violin at the Moscow Conservatory from 1866 to 1874. Tchaikovsky loved his playing, calling him ‘the best violinist of our time’ and Laub led the first performances of Tchaikovsky’s first two quartets. 

Tchaikovsky’s Third Quartet is in the most unusual key of E flat minor, lending much of the work a pervasive quality of melancholy. After a first movement that is stern and serious – and a magnificently constructed musical argument starting with a darkly lyrical slow introduction– the second movement is lighter and brighter, a kind of Scherzo, mixing charm with some spiky surprises and harmonic quirks. The slow movement is a searing lament propelled by the remorseless tread of a funeral march, with a contrasting idea that recalls Russian Orthodox chant. According to Tchaikovsky himself, many of the audience wept openly at the first performance of this heartrending memorial. The finale maintains the serious mood, but it does so with music that is vigorous and classically proportioned, interrupting the flow for moments of tragic reflection before heading to a much brighter conclusion that finally affirms the sunnier key of E flat major. 

© Nigel Simeone