Contemporary Classics June 19, 2018 Contemporary String Quartet

John Cage wrote String Quartet in Four Parts (1950) with the idea of writing a work that reflected the opposite approach he was taking in writing music for prepared piano, which involved placing objects on or between the strings of the piano in order to alter the instrument's sound. With this string quartet, the idea was to reverse this process of manipulating the string. Performers of the quartet are instructed to inflect the sound of the instrument as little as possible: no vibrato and little weight on the bow. The members of the violin family sound more like Renaissance viols with these restrictions. The general soundscape has an ancient yet timeless quality. This timeless quality is enhanced by the complex rhythmic structures and lack of melodies. It is striking how this method makes the music's period difficult to pin down. Owners of recordings can challenge even the most astute listeners with this work in a game of "drop the needle." Guessers are as likely to guess at the origin of the piece as from the fourteenth century as they are the twentieth century  except for the dissonance. This does not mean that the music is backward looking or derivative. Cage’s compositional methods where not meant to mimic the Renaissance but as a reaction to the composition styles of his time.

The four movements of the quartet are divided into the seasons. "Summer in France" is the first movement's subject marked Quietly Flowing Along. The second movement concerns autumn in New York marked Slowly Rocking. The third movement is a canon in winter marked Nearly Stationary, and the fourth movement is a spring quodlibet marked Quodlibet. Canons and quodlibets are sort of opposites, insofar as canons are staggered entries of the same theme while quodlibets juxtapose themes of different works for a humorous effect.

Erwin Schulhoff's 1924 String Quartet No. 1

Schulhoff's 1924 String Quartet No. 1 was written in 1924 shortly after his return to Prague, the city of his birth. He moved to Austria in 1906, at age 12, to study piano, and for most of the next two decades lived in Germany and Austria before returning to Czechoslovakia. His String Quartet No. 1 came in between the periods of his experimentation with atonality and other progressive methods (1919-1923), and the extreme simplification of his style that marked his compositions after 1931. This quartet is one of his finest works, exhibiting both a creative freshness and an imaginative if somewhat unusual structural plan, features that attest to Schulhoff's inventive skills in the string quartet genre. The work is cast in four movements, with a Presto con fuoco opening panel full of vigor and rhythmic poise. Its music is at once catchy in its jaunty, folk-like character. The ensuing Allegretto con moto e con malinconia grotesca deftly -- and humorously -- lives up to its marking with a grotesque sort of melancholy. The third movement, marked Allegro giocoso alla Slavacca, again turns folk like and also features some engaging effects, making the violin sound almost like a piccolo. The Andante molto sostenuto finale, the first truly slow movement, is charmingly gloomy in its colorfully ethereal sound world. This is  work that can appeal to those with either conservative or adventurous tastes.

Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet no.15 in E flat minor, opus 144

The String Quartet no.15 in E flat minor, opus 144, is one of the most moving of all Shostakovich's compositions and is arguably the most intimate quartet in the cycle. The profound melancholy of the music is akin to a requiem, probably influenced by the fact he was in the hospital when he was finishing the work. Shostakovich's concern with death is clearer here than in any other earlier chamber work. 

The Fifteenth Quartet has six movements:  1. Elegy – Adagio, attacca    2. Serenade – Adagio , attacca   3.  Intermezzo – Adagio, attacca 4. Nocturne – Adagio, attacca  5. Funeral March – 6. Adagio molto, attacca Epilogue – Adagio     All of the movements are in the key of E flat minor; all are marked adagio; all flow seamlessly into one another.

Richard N. Burke in his article “'Film, narrative, and Shostakovich's last quartet” makes the interesting that the fifteenth quartet is constructed as a chronological narrative of a persons adulthood. Burke writes that the work begins with an elegy, which set the tone for a recapitulation of a person’s life, beginning with the second movement.   The second movement a serenade which typically represents youth and hope is followed, after an intermezzo, by the nocturne of old age and finally by death. After burial, depicted by the funeral march, the protagonist would be remembered in an epilogue and an elegy. The  elegy returns in the epilogue.

Jeremy Gill’s 25

Jeremy Gill’s 25 was commissioned for the 25^th anniversary season of the Market Square concerts and was premiered by the Parker Quartet on Feb 24, 2007.  It has 7 parts in 5 movements

I. Introduction – alternating pizzacato cords and slow legato passages

II. Sonata (after Scarlatti, K. 26)  Sonata after Scarlotti – Begins canon-like to end in vigorous runs in all instruments

III. Passacaglia (after Haydn, Op. 51, No. 5) begins col legno battuto in all instruments followed pizzacato in cello and viola.  Then will continued pizzacato in cello and viola, the first violin has a bowed theme.  The second violin joins with the viola with a pizzacato theme.  The movement ends with an explosive bowed Il Terremoro

IV. Intermezzo (after Janacek, String Quartet No. 2, III)  Begins with a vigorous dance like figure interposed with a slow legato passages leading to a melody in the second violin with accompanied by the other instruments which then shifts briefly to the cello and viola to end in a furious, demented dance.

V. Begins with a Blumen section (after Schumann, Waldscenen) that begins with the furious dance then mellows into a hymn like passage that descends into the vigorous cacophony to return to the hymn-like passage becoming the Epilogue in an exquisite ending to the piece.

Iannis Xenakis  String Quartets

Xenakis’s string quartets are a music of strange and passionate pleasure, and each work is compellingly, sense-assailingly different. The composer has an analytical approach, which has a profound effect on later generations, particularly in his use of effects such as glissandos and non-vibrato playing as structural devices.

Iannis Xenakis   ST/4

ST/4 written between 1956-1964 is the composer’s transcription of ST/10 for larger ensemble. It is much more chaotic and spiky than the later works for string quartet.  It has wild, pointiliistic gestures, which alternately cling together or are teased out like taut elastic.

Iannis Xenakis Ergma

Ergma, from 1994 is imposing and searing, with the instruments double-stopping in blasts of tightly layered dissonance. Throughout the disc, the players of the Jack Quartet handle Xenakis’s intricate and complex sound worlds with committed, delicate brilliance, and the whole is given a burnished brightness by the impeccable recorded sound.