FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN
Born in Rohrau, Austria, 1732
Died in Vienna, 1809
String Quartet in A Major, Op. 20, No. 6
Haydn was one of the first composers to write for a chamber ensemble of two violins, viola, and cello, and his efforts were pivotal in establishing the string quartet as a chamber music mainstay. His first 10 examples date from the early 1760s, with some maybe even predating his hiring in 1761 by the wealthy Esterházy family. After a gap, Haydn issued a burst of quartets in 1771 and 1772, organized into three sets of six works each, and all labeled as Divertimentos. The last group, published in 1774 as Opus 20, represented his most advanced quartets yet, achieving new heights of independence and individuality for the four voices. Haydn was not responsible for the nickname of this collection — known as the “Sun Quartets” ever since a 1779 edition printed a sun design on the cover — but it was a fitting designation for these works that represented a new day for the string quartet.
In earlier practice, the lowest line of a divertimento would have been given the generic label of bass, meaning that it could be played by cello, double bass, harpsichord, or any other number of bass instruments, alone or in combination. (This was a holdover from the Baroque practice of basso continuo). But Haydn called specifically for cello in these quartets, and he treated the instrument as an equal partner and not just an accompaniment. The individuation of the lines comes through especially clearly in this quartet’s finale, constructed as a fugue with three subjects. Whether using a newfangled sonata form or an old-fashioned style of counterpoint, Haydn found ways to interweave four stringed instruments in wholly original ways, truly earning him the nickname “father of the string quartet.”
SIR STEPHEN HOUGH
Born in Heswall, England, 1961
String Quartet No. 1, “Les Six rencontres”
When Sir Stephen Hough is not circling the globe as one of today’s leading piano performers, he adds to his ever-growing catalog of compositions, including songs, chamber music, orchestral scores, and a range of solo piano works that he incorporates into his recital repertoire. The following is excerpted from his program note:
This piece was conceived after an invitation from the Takács Quartet: to write a companion work for a recording of the quartets of Ravel and Dutilleux. It was a thrilling if daunting challenge and it gave me an immediate idea as I considered these two colossi who strode across the length of the 20th century — not so much what united their musical languages but what was absent from them, not to mention the missing decades between the Ravel Quartet of 1903 and Dutilleux’s Ainsi la nuit from 1976.
The term “Les Six,” referring to the group of six French composers most prominently active around the interwar years, evokes a flavor more than a style — and it’s a flavor rarely found in the music of Ravel and Dutilleux. Composers like Poulenc and Milhaud were able to discover poignance in the rough and tumble of daily human life in a way that escaped the fastidiousness of those other two composers. Stravinsky referred to Ravel as “the most perfect, Swiss watchmaker.” Poulenc and his party could never be accused of being clock-watchers; their social hours were dimly lit by sputtering candles as the parties continued through the night, with Jean Cocteau or Picasso (other godfathers) opening yet another bottle of Bordeaux.
The subtitle for my Quartet No. 1 has within it a pun and a puzzle: the six movements as an echo of “Les Six,” although there are no quotes or direct references from those composers; and “encounters” that are unspecified, their phantom occurrence leaving only a trace in the memory of the places where the meetings might have taken place.
—© 2022 Sir Stephen Hough
JOHANNES BRAHMS
Born in Hamburg, 1833
Died in Vienna, 1897
Quintet for Piano and Strings in F Minor, Op. 34
Brahms spent most of his 20s in the orbit of the Schumann family, and he struggled to live up to Robert Schumann’s prediction that, “When once [Brahms] lowers his magic wand over the massed resources of chorus and orchestra, we shall have in store for us wonderful insights into the secret of the spiritual world.” Brahms did go on to compose legendary symphonies, but the first didn’t emerge until his early 40s. Instead, he made his first great strides in the genre of chamber music (a style that might have faded into oblivion without the efforts of Schumann and his circle), starting with a series of seven magnificent scores composed between 1860 and 1865.
One work that nearly eluded Brahms was the Piano Quintet in F Minor. He first wrote it in 1862 as a string quintet with two cellos, but his good friend and go-to violinist Joseph Joachim protested that strings alone could not do the music justice. Brahms then converted the work into the sonata for two pianos, which he performed in Vienna in 1864. This time his other closest musical confidante, pianist Clara Schumann, questioned the scoring, and Brahms revised it yet again to create a quintet for piano and strings, a format pioneered by Clara’s late husband Robert. Brahms destroyed his early string quintet version, but he allowed the two-piano version to be printed as Opus 34b.
The Piano Quintet has all the signatures of Brahms’ mature style: ceaseless thematic development, propulsive cross-rhythms, phrases that arc over bar-lines, and fervent themes with a tinge of Roma flair. The epic first movement unfurls its primary melody in naked octaves, holding back its full power until the second appearance. The contrasting theme provides no respite from the stormy material, striking up the distant key of C-sharp minor instead of the expected major key.
The slow movement is a marvel of understatement, featuring a hypnotic, fragmented theme oriented around rising intervals, prodded along gently by an accompaniment that leans on the off-beats.
The running joke of the scherzo is a schism between two alternating pulses, one rolling past with barreling triplets, the other adopting the martial pomp and snapping attack of dotted rhythms in a march tempo. The movement ends with an aggressive and unstable flourish, yearning for a resolution that comes with the start of the finale in the home key. The first delicate exchange mirrors the bare start of the first movement, and the tragic introduction builds anticipation for the body of the movement, which finally arrives with a new melody of folk-like simplicity. The last phrases devolve into a battle of displaced accents, and the quintet ends with the musicians still embroiled in rhythmic conflict.
© 2024 Aaron Grad