Program Notes by Members of the Daedalus Quartet
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PROGRAM NOTES BY MEMBERS OF THE DAEDALUS QUARTET W.A. Mozart String Quartet No. 23 in F major, K. 590 (1790) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart suffered from depression, or, in his own words, a “constant sadness.” In 1787, this depression was exacerbated by his father’s death. Furthermore, his concerts and commissions were fewer in the late 1780s because the Viennese economy had plunged into a recession, mostly due to a drawn-out war with Turkey. Personal depression and economic recession meant that Mozart’s productivity was waning and his finances were deteriorating. And so, in the spring of 1789, he travelled to Berlin, by way of Prague, Dresden, and Leipzig, in an attempt to turn things around. He met with royalty and patrons, and he gave concerts. In particular, he hoped to make a good impression on the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm II, who was an amateur cellist. However, it is not clear that Mozart ever got to meet the King. On his first attempt, he was sent instead to the director of chamber music, the cellist Jean Pierre Duport. Following his second attempt, he wrote to Constanze, his wife, that he received 100 friedrichs d’or and commissions for six string quartets and six clavier sonatas after performing for the Queen. But there is no entry in the court records that accounts for this second visit, and it is quite possible that Mozart borrowed the money from friends and made up the visit (and the commissions) in order to return to Vienna with something to show for his efforts. (It is also likely that he had a romantic entanglement during his travels, and he did not want to return to Constanze empty-handed.) Out of the twelve allegedly commissioned pieces, only three were completed: the “Prussian” string quartets, K. 575, 589, and 590. The latter two of these, from 1790, were composed in an exceptionally fallow period for Mozart – he wrote only a few other pieces that year. In May, a month before he composed K. 590, he wrote to his benefactor Michael Puchberg, “If only I had in hand 600 florins at least I should be able to compose with a fairly easy mind. And ah! I must have peace of mind.” Paradoxically, at times like these, when he really needed money, he seemed to shy away from compositions which would have been lucrative – compositions that would be easy to play and easy to understand, for the amusement of light-hearted amateurs. Instead, he wrote some of his most demanding chamber music, which, as it was appealing only to the Viennese musical elite, was not lucrative at all. More than two centuries later, we are not complaining. The “Prussian” string quartets were the culmination of Mozart’s skill in the idiom. In giving the cello a larger role (acknowledging the Prussian King’s – and Duport’s – instrument), Mozart was forced by symmetry to give every voice a share of the spotlight, and the resulting democratic interplay makes the quartets feel, more than ever, like opera. Symmetry is ubiquitous in Mozart’s music, but it is always extraordinary. In the first phrase of K. 590, we are struck, after two slow, soft notes, with a sudden loud note followed by a fast, jagged scale, with all four instruments playing the same pitches. It is not an opening which cries symmetry. However, in the second phrase, the shape is the same as the first but the rough edges have been smoothed out, and harmony has been employed to create the perfect symmetrical answer. Similarly, the coda of the first movement holds up a transformative mirror to the development. The second movement is reminiscent of a siciliana, a dance form which is often pastoral and bittersweet. Mozart loved to use the siciliana in his operas. This movement begins gently and simply, in rhythmic unison. Gradually, embellishments and variations (some of which are humorous) are added to the texture. It is a work of exquisite detail. In the minuet, an oscillating figure, passed from voice to voice, provides an unusual accompaniment, as do the outbursts in dotted rhythms, initially in the viola part. The trio is elegant and humorous. Especially charming is the way in which the grace notes are exchanged from voice to voice. The movement ends with a Viennese lilt. The last movement is fun-loving and virtuosic, and strongly features the viola in conversation with the first violin. In the development section, each instrument gets a chance to burst out with a solo; here, Mozart confuses us by grouping three sixteenth notes within a duple meter. Perhaps Beethoven liked this section: it reminds us of the solos that are passed around in the last movement of his Op. 59, No. 3 quartet. It is unlikely that King Friedrich Wilhelm II ever saw K. 590. Mozart himself did not live long enough to see it published – he died the following year. Alban Berg String Quartet, Op. 3 (1910) The first string quartet of Alban Berg, his Opus 3, was completed in 1910, when Berg was twenty-five years old. It was first performed on April 24 of the following year, in between two major events in Berg’s life: the death of Mahler, one of his idols, a few days before, and his marriage to Helene Nahowski, a woman from a wealthy Viennese family who might have been the illegitimate daughter of the emperor, a week and a half later. Berg’s engagement to Helene was a major coup and was no doubt on his mind as he wrote the quartet. Helene’s father had initially been disapproving of the match, calling Berg stupid, poor, sick, and immoral, and it was only after much insistence by the couple that he finally, grudgingly, gave his blessing. While the emotional power of Opus 3 takes its cue from Mahler, the work is more easily seen as the product of Berg’s study with Arnold Schoenberg. Even the appearance of the score reminds us of Schoenberg’s early works. Like Transfigured Night, the early quartets, and the first chamber symphony, for example, Berg’s Opus 3 is dense, gestural, and heavily marked with expressions in German. Further investigation of the music reveals more similarities to early Schoenberg: heightened expression, high drama, and, above all, an intellectual rigor that makes us feel, intuitively, that each note serves its role in the intricate structure. The piece is in two movements, which is a departure from the normal four movement form. It begins with a six-note gesture in the second violin, followed by a slower six-note answer in the viola and cello. These two motives spawn the entire quartet, to the extent that, while the first movement feels like a complete and thorough treatment of the motives, the second movement feels like a further outgrowth and development of that treatment. It is a taut and innovative construction that makes for a fascinating journey. Although the music is without a key signature, implying no tonal center, it is rare that we do not feel, at least vaguely, like we are in a certain key. In this way, Berg differed from Anton Webern, whose Five Pieces for String Quartet was written at about the same time, and Schoenberg in his twelve-tone years. Perhaps this is partly why listeners responded so positively to Berg’s Opus 3, at least after its initial premiere, which was panned. Following a performance in Salzburg in 1923, which earned, in Berg’s words, “almost frantic general applause,” the work was immediately picked up by a publisher and championed by string quartets all over Europe. It was his first great success. Antonín Dvořák String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat major, Op. 105 (1895) Antonín Dvořák lived in America between 1892 and 1895, during which time he served as the director of the new National Conservatory in New York City. He was paid a generous salary ($15,000 per year), and was wined and dined by New York’s elite, in particular by the tenacious Jeannette Thurber, who was the Conservatory’s president. He also spent an idyllic and productive summer in the Czech community of Spillville, Iowa in 1893. But in general, he was not particularly happy. He was extremely nostalgic for Vysoka, a small village near Prague, and for the friends and family (and pigeons) he had left there. Dvořák began to compose his A-flat major Quartet, Op. 105, in March 1895, during his last spring in New York. He got through the exposition of the first movement, and then abandoned it. Upon his return to Europe, he spent a few months decompressing. He visited friends and relaxed at home. Recharged, he dashed off an entire new quartet, his G major, Op. 106, and then, evidently feeling the momentum, completed the quartet he had started in New York. It was to be his final quartet, and was finished on December 30 that year, when he was fifty-four years old. While Dvořák was in America, he encouraged American composers to incorporate African American spirituals and Native American songs and rhythms into their pieces. He did this himself in his “American” Quartet and the E-flat minor Viola Quintet, which were written in Spillville, and in the “New World” Symphony. His final quartets marked a departure from this style. They embraced Old World traditions, both folk and formal. They represent a homecoming. The first movement, as if invoking Dvořák’s melancholy in a foreign land, begins with a lonesome cello. The slow introduction in the parallel minor transforms, however, into a bright Allegro appassionato, which only occasionally remembers the darkness from which it escaped.