CM Notes » Mandelring String Quartet
This program by the Mandelring String Quartet is largely devoted to Russian music. Apart from quartets by two major Russian composers the musicians have selected a work of Beethoven’s with at least a putative Russian theme. Alert readers of these notes will remember that Count Razumovsky’s commission to Beethoven for six quartets was predicated on the use of “Russian” themes. In the end Beethoven only completed three of the six quartets and the count ran short of money with which to pay for them.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 - 1893
String quartet in e flat minor, number 3 opus 30
We tend to think of Tchaikovsky as a symphonist and composer of large works, rather than as a master of chamber pieces. Roland Wiley, the Tchaikovsky scholar in Grove’sDictionary of Music and Musicians, comments that “Tchaikovsky was the first Russian composer who firmly assimilated the tradition of Western symphonic mastery in a deeply original, personal and national style. He united the symphonic thought of Beethoven and Schumann with the works of Glinka and transformed Liszt’s and Berlioz’ achievements in depictive and programmatic music into matters of Shakespearian elevation and psychological thought.”
The great canon of Western music is shaped by disciplined movement forward, with a balanced mathematical arrangement of themes and counter themes creating an architectural structure. This very cerebral way of doing things still allowed the composer to insert an enormous amount of passion into the work as long as it adhered to the rules. The rules were strong enough to withstand periodic challenges as new geniuses emerged.
By contrast traditional Russian music is based on a circular flow. The theme more or less stands still as the composer rotates around it. Glinka was the master of this process. Tchaikovsky, as it were, “squared” this circle. He followed the Germanic tradition of a first subject followed by one or more second subjects, with alterations that advance the thought. These themes are then repeated, varied and embroidered much as the earlier Russian master would have done.
In spite of the apparently static treatment of the themes, he used various musical devices to create movement and tension: dramatic pedal points, ostinato and sequences. These ingenious methods allow for a rich development in the symphony’s first movement.
Tchaikovsky only wrote three string quartets, all roughly within the same decade, 1866 – 1876. They are early works, before he developed his mature persona, yet even so , faint signs of what he would achieve can be found in them. While he was alive the quartets were very much admired and played frequently. In the 115 years since his death they have receded markedly. Only the romantic “Andante cantabile” from the first quartet remains in the repertoire. All the striking techniques he adopted were still to come.
He was just out of his student days, but past the time of juvenilia. Tchaikovsky handled the challenges of the string quartet deftly and with as much skill as if he had been doing it for years. These are not apprentice works. He completed this quartet in 1875 after the death of one of his friends, the virtuoso violinist, Ferdinand Laub.
During his lifetime Laub was as celebrated as Joachim or Wieniawski. Laub was a Czech from Prague, a few years older than Tchaikovsky. He was put in charge of the court chamber music by the King of Prussia and taught at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin for many years. Laub remains relevant because he was the first major violinist to play the Bach violin sonatas in public. He had also played at the first performances of both Tchaikovsky’s other quartets.
Scholars differ as to whether this quartet in four movements is or is not an explicit memorial to Laub. Much of its character was delineated from the start, while Laub was still alive. Some of this derives from the complex key. Four flats make it hard for a string player to keep all the notes balanced and in tune and the sonorities are darker than in some of the other keys.
It seems that Tchaikovsky subsequently augmented and expanded the sombre third movement to some extent. After Laub’s death everyone simply assumed that it was a funeral dirge for his friend. The work was dedicated to Laub.
Unlike Brahms, who remained frozen into inactivity by the stupendous example of Beethoven’s string quartets, Tchaikovsky was happy to make use of them as a model. In spite of that the first movement is exceptionally long and expresses a new voice with its lyrical expansiveness. The second movement is much livelier and almost frothy. The third movement is an extended threnody and contains musical references to the Russian Orthodox memorial service, with choral passages and chanting. None of his previous works showed such direct inspiration from the traditional Orthodox style of music. At first Tchaikovsky intended this to be the last movement but later on switched their positions. By the last movement Tchaikovsky returned to a more conventional style.
Dmitri Shostakovich 1906-1975
String quartet in F sharp minor, number 7 opus 108
Dmitri Shostakovich is considered to be the greatest symphonist of the twentieth century. All of us have difficulties and problems in our lives and musicians have many more than the average person but in the stakes for the most complex and troubled existence Shostakovich must come out near the top. He had the misfortune to live during the height of the Soviet Union and to be blacklisted twice in a country where that could mean death in the worst case.
His “crime” was to embrace modernism. Music which explored unusual harmonies or was intentionally dissonant annoyed Stalin and his henchmen. Their taste was locked into late 19th century romanticism and heroic choruses, completely tonal and predictable.
He was blacklisted for the first time in the 1930s. He managed to survive by sticking to conventional musical work and not causing any more discussion of his ideas. Lightweight hastily written works are the legacy of this phase. This was not the real Shostakovich as we know him.
The second episode was in the 1950s and this time Zhadanov, the dreaded commissar for artistic affairs, had Shostakovich firmly in his sights. No more wriggling out of the state’s harsh grip by turning to film music or other nambypamby fare. If Shostakovich was allowed to travel briefly to the West he paid for it by having to be even more obedient to the party line when he returned home.
At the same time his health was very poor. He developed various musculo-skeletal problems which prevented him from making the recordings he planned. In spite of trying to be more cheerful in his music inevitably these stressful experiences turned his thoughts inward and led him to deeper ad darker compositions.
The three movements of the quartet are played without a break. It is the shortest of Shostakovich’s quartets but there is nothing negligible about it. This was the first time Shostakovich used a minor key for one of his string quartets and the piece was dedicated to the memory of his first wife, Nina Vasilyevna. Written in 1960 it has many different motives.
At first the music is rather light, resembling the “grotesquerie” of an earlier phase. The rhythm is tightly controlled. As they switch to the second movement all the instruments use mutes. The movement is in three parts. Once the third movement arrives the mutes are retained for the introduction. This contrasts a fortissimo entrance against the muffled nature of muted instruments, giving a slightly strange effect.
Shostakovich also decided to use a fugue for this last segment, but takes many liberties with the form. Fragments of the earlier sections appear. A waltz seemingly materializes from nowhere, also with muting yet closer listening reveals that the waltz theme is based on the fugue’s subject. The entire movement ends pianissimo.
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770 – 1827
String quartet in C major, opus 59, number 3 “Razumovsky”
Beethoven’s stature very soon took him out of the ordinary run of composers and into mythology. He was turned into an icon and has even taken on some of the aspects of a Rorschach test. Attitudes toward Beethoven’s music reflected variations of the political spectrum, shifting by epoch and century. The most notorious case of this was his adoption by the Third Reich, extolling his nationalistic virtues only a little behind those of Wagner. In the 180 years since his death he has symbolized every nuance of political thought. The music itself sometimes got lost in this thicket.
These responses are hardly surprising. He set the scene himself as an intensely political man, dedicating his music to Napoleon when the latter appeared to be a great liberator and then tearing up the dedication in disgust as Napoleon became just another greedy dictator.
Even a cursory listener can see that there are striking paradoxes in such interpretations of Beethoven’s music. For every overpowering symphonic masterwork there are sonatas and chamber works which are totally private and introspective. An amusing example is in Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. Holmes tells Watson he is going the Queens Hall to see Sarasate: ”There is a good deal of German music on the programme today and I am in the mood to introspect.”
Beethoven wrote 17 string quartets. At first they came in clusters, partly based on commissions but later simply from the thoughts simmering in his mind over many years and finally emerging very late in his life. The first set, opus 18, still bear traces of Mozart and Haydn’s influence with quite strict Classical form. The last ones broke completely clear of any extraneous influences, speaking with a unique voice which no one else has ever reached.
Opus 59, number 3 is a quartet from the “middle period”. This group arose from a commission as noted above. The quartet was first performed in 1806. In order to placate the count, Beethoven wrote the Andante “in the Russian idiom”. In the six years since he completed the opus 18 series he had broadened and deepened his vision. Cohn thinks the works had become “symphonic” and certainly the record shows that musicians found the first two of the series very difficult to play and understand.
Beethoven started out this quartet with an introduction which wanders from key to key. Early nineteenth century listeners were very distressed by this type of writing, expecting, indeed almost demanding, that the piece begin strictly in the nominal key. Using the key of C major allowed him an almost blank slate on which to build his themes. Beethoven had very definite views on the “color” of the different keys and the moods they indicated. C major lacks these signifiers and presumably that is way he chose it. Mozart had done the same thing in his “Dissonant” quartet and this might have been embedded in Beethoven’s mind.
Three out of the four movements are in sonata form, another shock to the Viennese audience. The first theme of the first movement has two elements with different rhythms. As the other sections proceed, the short first segment of the first theme keeps popping up in varying guises.
In the slow movement Beethoven shifts to the relative minor. This indicates the “Russian” mood. It is a long and somewhat melancholic piece also in sonata form but interspersed with considerable examination of the musical fragments which make up the principal subjects. Beethoven was incomparable at extracting every last drop of meaning and interest from even the shortest subject. Just when it seems nothing left to say he comes up with another twist. The basis for these elaborate, often meandering but always cogent variations are found in his notebooks.
Strangely enough he returned to the old fashioned minuet for the third movement, after having replaced it by lively scherzos many times before. There is no record of why he did this. One possibility is that the count requested it.
Both the last two movements are in the key of C major. Beethoven’s rebellious spirit and openness to new directions were not at play here. He was still quite conservative in his use of keys. One thing he enjoyed was putting together a strong fugue and he indulged himself in this for the last movement. Technically, turning a fugue into sonata form is a challenge but that just made the whole thing more piquant for him.
Copyright © Judith M. Taylor February 2008
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840 - 1893
String quartet in e flat minor, number 3 opus 30
We tend to think of Tchaikovsky as a symphonist and composer of large works, rather than as a master of chamber pieces. Roland Wiley, the Tchaikovsky scholar in Grove’sDictionary of Music and Musicians, comments that “Tchaikovsky was the first Russian composer who firmly assimilated the tradition of Western symphonic mastery in a deeply original, personal and national style. He united the symphonic thought of Beethoven and Schumann with the works of Glinka and transformed Liszt’s and Berlioz’ achievements in depictive and programmatic music into matters of Shakespearian elevation and psychological thought.”
The great canon of Western music is shaped by disciplined movement forward, with a balanced mathematical arrangement of themes and counter themes creating an architectural structure. This very cerebral way of doing things still allowed the composer to insert an enormous amount of passion into the work as long as it adhered to the rules. The rules were strong enough to withstand periodic challenges as new geniuses emerged.
By contrast traditional Russian music is based on a circular flow. The theme more or less stands still as the composer rotates around it. Glinka was the master of this process. Tchaikovsky, as it were, “squared” this circle. He followed the Germanic tradition of a first subject followed by one or more second subjects, with alterations that advance the thought. These themes are then repeated, varied and embroidered much as the earlier Russian master would have done.
In spite of the apparently static treatment of the themes, he used various musical devices to create movement and tension: dramatic pedal points, ostinato and sequences. These ingenious methods allow for a rich development in the symphony’s first movement.
Tchaikovsky only wrote three string quartets, all roughly within the same decade, 1866 – 1876. They are early works, before he developed his mature persona, yet even so , faint signs of what he would achieve can be found in them. While he was alive the quartets were very much admired and played frequently. In the 115 years since his death they have receded markedly. Only the romantic “Andante cantabile” from the first quartet remains in the repertoire. All the striking techniques he adopted were still to come.
He was just out of his student days, but past the time of juvenilia. Tchaikovsky handled the challenges of the string quartet deftly and with as much skill as if he had been doing it for years. These are not apprentice works. He completed this quartet in 1875 after the death of one of his friends, the virtuoso violinist, Ferdinand Laub.
During his lifetime Laub was as celebrated as Joachim or Wieniawski. Laub was a Czech from Prague, a few years older than Tchaikovsky. He was put in charge of the court chamber music by the King of Prussia and taught at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin for many years. Laub remains relevant because he was the first major violinist to play the Bach violin sonatas in public. He had also played at the first performances of both Tchaikovsky’s other quartets.
Scholars differ as to whether this quartet in four movements is or is not an explicit memorial to Laub. Much of its character was delineated from the start, while Laub was still alive. Some of this derives from the complex key. Four flats make it hard for a string player to keep all the notes balanced and in tune and the sonorities are darker than in some of the other keys.
It seems that Tchaikovsky subsequently augmented and expanded the sombre third movement to some extent. After Laub’s death everyone simply assumed that it was a funeral dirge for his friend. The work was dedicated to Laub.
Unlike Brahms, who remained frozen into inactivity by the stupendous example of Beethoven’s string quartets, Tchaikovsky was happy to make use of them as a model. In spite of that the first movement is exceptionally long and expresses a new voice with its lyrical expansiveness. The second movement is much livelier and almost frothy. The third movement is an extended threnody and contains musical references to the Russian Orthodox memorial service, with choral passages and chanting. None of his previous works showed such direct inspiration from the traditional Orthodox style of music. At first Tchaikovsky intended this to be the last movement but later on switched their positions. By the last movement Tchaikovsky returned to a more conventional style.
Dmitri Shostakovich 1906-1975
String quartet in F sharp minor, number 7 opus 108
Dmitri Shostakovich is considered to be the greatest symphonist of the twentieth century. All of us have difficulties and problems in our lives and musicians have many more than the average person but in the stakes for the most complex and troubled existence Shostakovich must come out near the top. He had the misfortune to live during the height of the Soviet Union and to be blacklisted twice in a country where that could mean death in the worst case.
His “crime” was to embrace modernism. Music which explored unusual harmonies or was intentionally dissonant annoyed Stalin and his henchmen. Their taste was locked into late 19th century romanticism and heroic choruses, completely tonal and predictable.
He was blacklisted for the first time in the 1930s. He managed to survive by sticking to conventional musical work and not causing any more discussion of his ideas. Lightweight hastily written works are the legacy of this phase. This was not the real Shostakovich as we know him.
The second episode was in the 1950s and this time Zhadanov, the dreaded commissar for artistic affairs, had Shostakovich firmly in his sights. No more wriggling out of the state’s harsh grip by turning to film music or other nambypamby fare. If Shostakovich was allowed to travel briefly to the West he paid for it by having to be even more obedient to the party line when he returned home.
At the same time his health was very poor. He developed various musculo-skeletal problems which prevented him from making the recordings he planned. In spite of trying to be more cheerful in his music inevitably these stressful experiences turned his thoughts inward and led him to deeper ad darker compositions.
The three movements of the quartet are played without a break. It is the shortest of Shostakovich’s quartets but there is nothing negligible about it. This was the first time Shostakovich used a minor key for one of his string quartets and the piece was dedicated to the memory of his first wife, Nina Vasilyevna. Written in 1960 it has many different motives.
At first the music is rather light, resembling the “grotesquerie” of an earlier phase. The rhythm is tightly controlled. As they switch to the second movement all the instruments use mutes. The movement is in three parts. Once the third movement arrives the mutes are retained for the introduction. This contrasts a fortissimo entrance against the muffled nature of muted instruments, giving a slightly strange effect.
Shostakovich also decided to use a fugue for this last segment, but takes many liberties with the form. Fragments of the earlier sections appear. A waltz seemingly materializes from nowhere, also with muting yet closer listening reveals that the waltz theme is based on the fugue’s subject. The entire movement ends pianissimo.
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770 – 1827
String quartet in C major, opus 59, number 3 “Razumovsky”
Beethoven’s stature very soon took him out of the ordinary run of composers and into mythology. He was turned into an icon and has even taken on some of the aspects of a Rorschach test. Attitudes toward Beethoven’s music reflected variations of the political spectrum, shifting by epoch and century. The most notorious case of this was his adoption by the Third Reich, extolling his nationalistic virtues only a little behind those of Wagner. In the 180 years since his death he has symbolized every nuance of political thought. The music itself sometimes got lost in this thicket.
These responses are hardly surprising. He set the scene himself as an intensely political man, dedicating his music to Napoleon when the latter appeared to be a great liberator and then tearing up the dedication in disgust as Napoleon became just another greedy dictator.
Even a cursory listener can see that there are striking paradoxes in such interpretations of Beethoven’s music. For every overpowering symphonic masterwork there are sonatas and chamber works which are totally private and introspective. An amusing example is in Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. Holmes tells Watson he is going the Queens Hall to see Sarasate: ”There is a good deal of German music on the programme today and I am in the mood to introspect.”
Beethoven wrote 17 string quartets. At first they came in clusters, partly based on commissions but later simply from the thoughts simmering in his mind over many years and finally emerging very late in his life. The first set, opus 18, still bear traces of Mozart and Haydn’s influence with quite strict Classical form. The last ones broke completely clear of any extraneous influences, speaking with a unique voice which no one else has ever reached.
Opus 59, number 3 is a quartet from the “middle period”. This group arose from a commission as noted above. The quartet was first performed in 1806. In order to placate the count, Beethoven wrote the Andante “in the Russian idiom”. In the six years since he completed the opus 18 series he had broadened and deepened his vision. Cohn thinks the works had become “symphonic” and certainly the record shows that musicians found the first two of the series very difficult to play and understand.
Beethoven started out this quartet with an introduction which wanders from key to key. Early nineteenth century listeners were very distressed by this type of writing, expecting, indeed almost demanding, that the piece begin strictly in the nominal key. Using the key of C major allowed him an almost blank slate on which to build his themes. Beethoven had very definite views on the “color” of the different keys and the moods they indicated. C major lacks these signifiers and presumably that is way he chose it. Mozart had done the same thing in his “Dissonant” quartet and this might have been embedded in Beethoven’s mind.
Three out of the four movements are in sonata form, another shock to the Viennese audience. The first theme of the first movement has two elements with different rhythms. As the other sections proceed, the short first segment of the first theme keeps popping up in varying guises.
In the slow movement Beethoven shifts to the relative minor. This indicates the “Russian” mood. It is a long and somewhat melancholic piece also in sonata form but interspersed with considerable examination of the musical fragments which make up the principal subjects. Beethoven was incomparable at extracting every last drop of meaning and interest from even the shortest subject. Just when it seems nothing left to say he comes up with another twist. The basis for these elaborate, often meandering but always cogent variations are found in his notebooks.
Strangely enough he returned to the old fashioned minuet for the third movement, after having replaced it by lively scherzos many times before. There is no record of why he did this. One possibility is that the count requested it.
Both the last two movements are in the key of C major. Beethoven’s rebellious spirit and openness to new directions were not at play here. He was still quite conservative in his use of keys. One thing he enjoyed was putting together a strong fugue and he indulged himself in this for the last movement. Technically, turning a fugue into sonata form is a challenge but that just made the whole thing more piquant for him.
Copyright © Judith M. Taylor February 2008
