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String Quartet in C Major, K. 465, “Dissonant”
Mozart
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Why “dissonant”? The title tells us that early listeners to this quartet (it dates from 1785) were disturbed, baffled, even in some cases offended by the 22 measures of solemn and portentous introduction to the first movement. Some musicians actually sent their parts back to the publisher to be “corrected.” Even Joseph Haydn, to whom the piece was dedicated, remarked of it “Well, if Mozart wrote it, he must have meant it.”
There is a lesson here for modern ears. Today we hear no jarring “dissonance” in those 22 measures. The harmony is certainly “advanced” for Mozart, and might even be said to anticipate Wagner – but no one today considers it a “mistake” that needs “correction.”
Mozart never explained why he introduced the generally sunny first movement of this work with such a serious prelude. The movement then bubbles along happily to its quiet close. The slow movement, beginning with a soulful songlike theme, is also remarkable for the depth of its feeling. Note the little four-note figure tossed back and forth between violin and cello that becomes a major thematic element before the movement is over. Mozart seems almost to be anticipating music’s future “romantic” movement here.
The brief minuet begins delicately, but its central trio plunges unexpectedly into the passionate minor mode. The good-humored finale is full of playful gusto. There is one brief flirtation with the minor mode, but then Mozart, after a series of humorous false starts, turns back to his opening theme and the merry mood persists to the end.
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String Quartet no. 2, op. 17
Bartok
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The six string quartets of Bela Bartok (1881-1945) are among the most important works of the past century in this genre. They are uncompromisingly –- sometimes startlingly –- original in form and harmonic language, yet they reflect Bartok’s lifelong interest in Hungarian folk music as well as his awareness of the latest trends in the art music of his time. They span 30 years of his creative life -- a kind of musical pilgrim’s progress in sound.
The second quartet was written in 1915-1917, a period when Bartok was greatly distressed by the barbarity and destruction that he saw all around him as World War I raged. It is considered a crucial work in which Bartok both summed up his musical past and asserted the sound and style of his mature works.
The quartet is in three movements, whose very layout (slow-fast-slow) is the exact opposite of what had become standard quartet layout up to that time (fast-slow-fast).
The first movement, marked moderato, is intense and lyrical, like an animated yet civilized discussion among four people who may not always agree but who seldom raise their voices in anger. The opening five-note theme given out by the violin is tossed around among the players, varied, worked up to a climax at the emotional center of the movement, then ultimately returned in a quieter setting. Toward the end a striking subordinate theme is introduced over strummed chords before the movement dies softly away.
The middle movement is a kind of wild dance, full of offbeat accents and chugging rhythms. Analysts have noted here the influence of Hungarian folk music. There is a contrasting middle section full of brief melodic fragments, as if the music cannot quite make up its mind what direction it wants to take. The wild dance resumes, there is a mysterious episode played very fast and softly, and the conclusion is vigorous. The final movement, eerily soft and slow, has been compared to a musical lunar landscape. Amid the spectral whispers, the five-note motive from the first movement returns. Only toward the very end does the music briefly grow fairly loud. The ending is extremely soft, the music seeming to vanish into thin air, with only two abrupt pizzicato chords to finish it off.
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Adagio Sostenuto from String Quartet
Christopher Weiss
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This piece is the second movement of a three-movement string quartet by Christopher Weiss, a graduate student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. The composer is expected to be present and speak briefly about the piece before the performance.
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Lullaby and Fascinating Rhythm
Gershwin
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Gershwin wrote the brief Lullaby in 1919 as a harmony exercise for his then teacher, the composer Edward Kilenyi. Some years later its main theme was re-used in “Blue Monday,” a kind of miniature opera that Gershwin wrote for a Broadway show, “Scandals of 1922.”
“Fascinating Rhythm,” one of Gershwin’s most enduring hit tunes, was written for the 1924 Broadway musical “Lady Be Good,” one of the early starring vehicles for the dance team of Fred and Adele Astaire. Gershwin biographer Joan Peyser asserts that this catchy tune, heard here in an arrangement for string quartet, “pointed the way to a jazzy, brassy future for the Broadway musical,”
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Program notes by Robert Finn
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