The entire work is in the nature of the development of a germinal thought. This thought expresses itself in various forms; in the initial fugue subject, in the gyrating theme of the second movement, in the half-barbaric dance of the last. The quartet is, broadly speaking, a series of variations, each outgrown from one before. The music literally grows. In the quartet of Franck it progresses, and its various themes are arranged. His method is nearer akin to the symphonic poems of Liszt, or to theSymphonie Fantastiqueof Berlioz. The affinities between the various movements of the C-sharp minor quartet are subtle, indeed almost not to be proved but only felt. In the quartet of César Franck, the relationships are evident and even striking. This question of form, however, concerns all branches of music, and is not peculiar to the quartet.
Among the many devoted pupils of César Franck one is distinguished by, among other things, two excellent quartets. This is Vincent d’Indy. The quartet in D major, opus 35, was composed in 1890, the second quartet, in E major, opus 45, in 1897. The second reveals two characteristic features of d’Indy’s style: a use of folk-melodies, together with a powerful intellectual command of the principles of musical form. The cycle of four movements is constructed upon a single motive which is printed as a motto at the head of the score. The procedure recalls Schumann, particularly theSphinxesof theCarnaval. There is a slow introduction in which the motive is made clear. An animated movement in sonata form then follows, of which the opening measures (cello) are sprung from the motive, and developed into a broad melody (first violin). After a lovely second theme (G major, first violin, initiated by viola) there is a long development of the motive and this first theme. In one section—très calme—the motive appears augmented—now for viola, now for first violin and at the same time violoncello (syncopated).In the next section it is tossed about between the violins, over a repeated B (violoncello). Suggestions of the returning theme are given in C-sharp major (first violin) and in C-sharp minor (second violin). The second theme returns, regularly, in E major (viola).
In the following movement the motive is given in a piquant dance-like style (5-4). In the adagio (très lent) it forms the first notes of the chief melody (first violin and viola in unison); and in the last movement is reduced to an accompanying whirr, suggestive of the beginning of the last movement of the pianoforte quintet of Franck. It is likewise in the monotonous melody of the first violin, taken up by the 'cello, by the two violins in unison and repeated with a mad sort of swing. Near the end it is given a soft, gently songful character (first violin) in long notes, while the viola continues softly the same motive on a different degree of the scale and in a different rhythm.
There is an unfinished quartet in C minor, opus 35, by Ernest Chausson, consisting of three movements. The development of the first theme of the first out of the motive of the slow introduction is worthy of notice. The scherzo is delicate, but the best of the work is in the slow middle movement, with its calm interweaving of soft voices over a drowsy figure, and its moments of enraptured song.
There is a strong classical element, however, in the quartet of César Franck and even in d’Indy’s quartet in E major. Both, compared with one of the later quartets of Beethoven, will appear more richly scored and harmonically more highly colored than the older work. And yet, in spite of the introduction of new ideas of form, the old ideas still are at the basis of these works. This is because both composers have adhered to the fundamental harmonic principles of the classics, the principle of a tonic key, of a dominantkey, of keys that are contrasted with the tonic key. They have added to the heritage which passed from Beethoven and Schubert, through Chopin and Wagner, to them; but they have discarded no part of it, nor added to it except in kind. The richness of their works, however, must signalize a further and remarkable growth upon the ancient stock of Bach and Beethoven.
In a great many Russian quartets the adherence to established forms is even more evident. The three quartets of Tschaikowsky and the two of Borodine may be taken as representative of what we must now call the older Russian school. The well-known quartet in D (opus 11) by the former follows the classical model step by step as to the arrangement of themes and even the disposition of keys. And though the later quartets, in F (opus 22) and in E-flat minor (opus 30, written in memory of Ferdinand Laub [1832-1875], a famous violinist) present wild and even harsh features, the ground plan of them is essentially the classical plan. We have but to note in them a richer and more highly colored harmony, and a few sonorous effects—the muted beginning of the first part of the second movement in opus 11; the pizzicatobasso ostinatoin the second part of the same movement; the syncopated chords, the rolling accompaniment (cello in the development section) in the first movement of opus 22; and others.
It would, of course, be absurd to claim that the Tschaikowsky quartets are classical in style, or in spirit. Their quality is most intensely romantic. Rhythm, melody, and harmony have well-nigh a barbaric guise in many places. Yet they represent but modifications and alterations of a familiar plan. Wehave a new poem in a language that has not yet developed beyond our knowledge of it. Of the haunting beauty of these poems in music there is little need to speak.
Borodine in regard to form is classical. The first movement of the quartet in A is a masterpiece in clear construction. The exposition of the principal allegro theme is as simple as Haydn. The second theme follows regularly in E major. There is a development section with a little fugato, and a restatement of the chief themes, both in the tonic key. The first movement of the later quartet—in D major—is similarly regular in structure. And there is scarcely any structural oddity or newness in any of the subsequent movements. But Borodine, like Tschaikowsky, has added a touch of new colors here and there which mark an advance—at least technical—in handling the instruments together. His style is remarkably clear throughout. Note only the opening measures of the allegro. And it loses none of its transparency when it expands to effects of great sonority, as in the treatment of the second theme at the end of the development section, and of the first theme later on in the restatement. The use of harmonics in the Trio is almost unprecedented in quartet music.
The lovely effects in the slow movement of Tschaikowsky’s quartet in D major, and these effects of Borodine’s, remain within the limits of the quartet style. But they point most significantly towards an orchestral treatment of the group which becomes the unconscious aim of the majority of composers. It is difficult and perhaps absurd to define a quartet style. Still a certain transparency and a fineness of movement and drawing are peculiar to this combination alone; and it may be said that when the volume of sound is thickened, and the delicacy of movement coarsened; or when special tonal effects are introduced which addcolor at the expense of line, then those peculiar possibilities of the quartet are ignored. Hence music so written may be called orchestral, though only by comparison, of course, with the traditional quartet style, the outlines of which we have chosen to fix upon the model of Mozart and Beethoven.
The later Russian composers have almost without exception aimed at effects of sonority and color. For example there are fiveNovellettesby Glazounoff, opus 15; oneAlla Spagnola, full of pizzicato, anOrientale, a Valse, and anAll’Ungherese, all of which are made up of effects of color and rhythm. There is aQuatuor Slave, opus 26, theMazurkaof which is again wholly ‘effective.’ The final movement—Une fête Slave—might far better be written for orchestra. The earlier quartets, opus 1 and opus 10, are inconspicuous.
Mention should be made of the quartet written in honor of the publisher Belaieff, to which Rimsky-Korsakoff, Liadoff, Borodine and Glazounoff each contributed a movement. The same men, except Borodine, joined in another quartet calledJour de fête.
There are six quartets by Serge Taneieff, all carefully written but in the main orchestral. The third (D minor) is perhaps best known, but the fourth and fifth seem to me more significant. There are quartets by Alexander Gretchaninoff, by A. Kopyloff, by Nikolas Sokoloff. Most of the Russian composers have written one or two. Reinhold Glière, among the more recent, has been successful. A quartet in G minor, opus 20, was published in 1906. It shows some influence of the modern French movement in the matter of harmony; but unlike the recent French quartets, this is in most pronounced orchestral style. A glance over the final movement, anOrientale, will serve to show how completely the traditional quartet style may be supplemented by effects of color and wild sonority. In Taneieff there is trace of the older tradition; but elsewherein the modern Russian quartets the ancient style has disappeared.
The same tendency has become evident in the quartets of nearly all nations. The Grieg quartet offers a striking example. Here is a work which for lovers of Grieg must always have a special charm. Nowhere does he speak more forcefully or more passionately. There is a wild, almost a savage vitality in the whole work. But there is hardly a trace of genuine quartet style in any movement. In the statement of the first theme the viola, it is true, imitates the violin; but the second violin and the cello carry on a wholly orchestral accompaniment. The climax in this statement, and the measures before the second theme almost cry aloud for the pounding force of the piano, or the blare of trumpets and the shriek of piccolos. In fact almost through the entire movement the style is solid, without transparency and without flexibility of movement. The coda is the most startlingly orchestral of all. Measure after measure of a tremolo for the three upper instruments offers a harmonic background for the cello. The tremolo by the way is to be playedsul ponticello, yet another orchestral manner. One cannot but recall the strange ending of the E major movement in Beethoven’s quartet in C-sharp minor, where, too, the instruments playsul ponticello, but each one pursuing a clear course, adding a distinct thread to the diaphanous network of sound. Surely in the hands of Grieg quartet music has become a thing of wholly different face and meaning.
There have been magnificent quartets written in Bohemia. One by Smetana is a great masterpiece. But here again we have the orchestral style. The quartet—Aus meinem Leben—proved on this account so distastefulto the Society of Chamber Music in Prague that the players refused to undertake it. Smetana suspected, however, that sheer technical difficulty rather than impropriety of style was at the bottom of their refusal.[78]Whatever the reason may have been, the work is supremely great. It seems to me there is no question of impropriety or change of style here. Smetana set himself to tell something of his life in music, and he chose the quartet because the four instruments speak as it were intimately, as he would himself speak in a circle of his friends about things which caused him more suffering than he could bear. We have then not a quartet, which is of all music the most abstract, or, if you will, absolute; but an outpouring of emotions. This is notl’art pour l’art, but almost a sublime agony of musical utterance.
As a quartet it stands unique—no piece of program music has accomplished more successfully the object of its composer than this. The first movement represents ‘love of music in my youth, a predominating romanticism, the inexpressible yearning for something which I could neither name nor clearly define, and also a sort of portent of my future misfortune.’ The second movement brought back memories of happy days when he wrote dance music for all the countryside, and was himself an impassioned dancer. And there is a slower section which tells of associations with the aristocracy. It is of this section that the players of Prague chiefly complained. APolkarhythm runs through the whole movement. And after this thoughtlessly gay passage, the third movement speaks of his love for the woman who afterwards became his wife. The last movement speaks of the recognition of the awakening national consciousness in ‘our beautiful art,’ and his joy in furthering this until the day of his terrible affliction (deafness). At this place the music, which hasbeen unrestrainedly light-hearted and joyful, suddenly stops. The cello attacks a low C, the second violin and viola plunge into a shuddering dark series of harmonies, and over this the first violin for more than six measures holds a high, piercing E, symbolical of the chords, the ceaseless humming of which in his ears foretold his deafness. After this harrowing passage the music sinks sadly to the end with a reminiscence of hopes of earlier years (a theme from the first movement). No thematic or formal analysis can be necessary. The work is intense with powerful emotion from the first note to the last, and speaks with a directness that does not spare the listener thus introduced into the very heart of an unhappy and desperate man. The general orchestral style is noticeable at the beginning, and in the fateful passage at the end. In the second section of the second movement there is a phrase (viola) to be playedquasi Tromba. This is later taken up by the second violin, and still later by the first violin and viola in octaves. The form is regular and clear-cut, the technical skill of the highest order. There is a later quartet, in D minor, which is irregular, fragmentary, explosive. The writing is here, too, orchestral. There is an excess of frantic unison passages, of mad tremolo, as there is also at the beginning of the last movement.
In the quartets of Dvořák the orchestral manner is not so evident, but none of his quartets is emotionally so powerful as Smetana’s great work. Dvořák brings the quartet back into its proper sphere. His instinct for effects shows itself at the very beginning. Notice in his first quartet—in D minor, opus 34, dedicated to Johannes Brahms—the presentation of the second theme in the first movement: the rolling figure for cello, the persistent figure for the viola which by holding to its shape acquires an independent significance, and over these the duet between first and second violin. Thevaried accompaniment in the second movement is well worth study.
The whole first movement of the second quartet—E-flat major, opus 51—is perfectly adapted to the four string instruments. Every part has an independence and a delicate free motion. The second movement, aDumka, is one of his masterpieces in chamber music, and the followingRomanzeis almost its equal. The final movement cannot but suggest Schumann. The third and fourth quartets, opus 61 and opus 80, lack the inspiration of the two earlier ones.
In our time we come to the famous quartet in F major, opus 96, written in Spillville, Iowa, in June, 1893. One may call it the little sister of the New World Symphony, which had been composed shortly before in New York City. Like the bigger work it is founded upon motives and themes which have characteristics common to the music of the American negro. Some say these same characteristics are common to music in Bohemia and Hungary, even to Scottish music. Hence the discussion which has raged from time to time over the New World Symphony, though the title of the symphony was of Dvořák’s own choosing;[79]and the quartet, and the quintet which followed it (opus 97) have likewise been made a bone of contention. However, it must be granted by all alike that the quartet is one of the most successful pieces of chamber music that has been written. Nowhere does Dvořák’s style show to better advantage, and few, if any quartets, are better adapted to the nature of the instruments for which they were written.
Two later quartets, opus 105, in A-flat major, and opus 106, in G major, do not compare favorably, at least from the point of view of musical vitality, with the earlier works.
Merely to mention the composers who have written string quartets and to enumerate their works would fill a long chapter, and to little avail. Haydn gave the quartet a considerable place among the forms of musical composition. Mozart’s six quartets dedicated to Haydn are almost unique as an expression of his genius not influenced by external circumstances. The last Beethoven quartets are the final and abstract account of that great man’s conclusions with life and his art. Since the day of these three masters few composers have brought to the form such a special intention. Few string quartets since that day contain a full and special expression of the genius of the men who composed them. We look to other forms for the essentials of their contribution to the art of music. Indeed, among the men who have been discussed in this chapter there are few whose quartets are of real significance or of a merit that is equal to that of their other works.
As to form there has been little radical change down to the time of the recent composers who have abandoned deliberately all that it was possible to abandon of classical tradition. Of them and their work we shall speak presently. Schumann, Brahms, Tschaikowsky and Borodine, Smetana and Dvořák, and even César Franck and Vincent d’Indy have adhered closely to the classical model, varying it and adding to it, but never discarding it.
In the matter of style and technique most of the advance has been made in the direction of special effects, already described, and of increased sonority. With the result that the ancient and traditional quartet style has given way in most cases to an orchestral style, in which effects are essentially massive and broad, whichis a tapestry, not a web of sound. Take, for example, three quartets by modern composers of yesterday: that of Tschaikowsky in D, Smetana’sAus meinem Leben, and César Franck’s. If these are not the greatest since Schubert they have at least few companions; and they represent more than those of Brahms, we think, the development in technique as well as the change in style that the century brought. There are few pages in any one of them which do not show fine and sensitive workmanship; but the tone of all three is unmistakablyorchestral, in the sense that it is massive, sensuous, and richly sonorous.
It is then with some surprise that we find what at the present day we call the modern movement expressed in three quartets which are as conspicuous for delicate quartet style as for the modernness of their forms and harmonies.
Debussy’s quartet was written comparatively early (1893), not more than three or four years after Franck had completed his. It is not a work of his first period, however, of the time when he was still a disciple of Wagner. Rather it belongs to the second period of whichL’isle joyeuse, andEstampes, for piano,L’après-midi d’un faune, for orchestra, and the opera ‘Pelleas and Melisande,’ are, with it, representative works. It is written according to his own ideas of harmony, explained elsewhere in this series, and hence may be taken as the first quartet in which the classical tradition has been radically altered if not wholly disregarded. For the forms of sonata, symphony, and quartet were founded upon a system of harmony. Musical material, however freely disposed, rested upon a basis of key and contrasting keys common to all music of that era, the passing of which seems now before us. The Debussy quartet is constructed thematically in a way which in principle is old and familiar, but upon a basis which transforms the work beyond recognitionof those to whom his harmonic series is not yet familiar.
There is little to be said of the plan of the work. The four movements are constructed upon a single phrase. Men wrote suites that way in the early seventeenth century. This phrase, in which there are two motives, is given out at once by the first violin, solidly supported by the other instruments. The movement isanimé et très décidé. There is an impassioned abandon to sound. Secondary motives are given out: by the violin under which the three other instruments rise and fall in chords that whirr like the wind; by the cello, the same wind of harmony blowing high above. Then again the opening motives, growing from soft to loud; and a new motive (first violin and viola in tenths), over a monotonous twisting (second violin and cello in sixths). Then comes a retard. One would expect a second theme here. The harmony rests for a moment on F-sharp minor, and there is a snatch of melody (first violin). But for those broad harmonic sections of the sonata there is here no regard. The key flashes by. The melody was but a clever change rung upon the opening phrase. It comes again following an impetuous and agitated crescendo. Note how after this the music rushes ever up and up, and with what a whirling fall it sinks down almost to silence; how over a hushed triplet figure on an imperfect fifth (A-flat—D, cello) it gains force again, and the opening phrases recur, and something again of the secondary motives. There is perfect order of all the material, an order hardly differing from that of the classical sonata; but the harmonies melt and flow, they have no stable line, they never broaden, never rest. And so all seems new, and was, and still is new.
The second movement (assez vif et bien rythmé) is in the nature of a scherzo. Four pizzicato chords begin, and then the viola gives out the chief idea, an easily-recognizedvariant of the fundamental idea announced at the beginning of the first movement. But this is used first as atenore ostinato(if one may speak of it so). It is repeated by the viola fourteen times without variation; then five times by first violin, and twice, dying away, by cello. Meanwhile the other instruments are at something the same monotonous game. Nothing is clear. There are cross-rhythms, broken phrases, a maze of odd movements, independent of each other.
Then follows a passage of different character. The lower instruments weave a network of faint sound, and the violin has a phrase, clearly related to the fundamental motive, though greatly augmented. Then the queer rioting chatter of the first part comes hack, all the instruments pizzicato, the time 15/8.
The third movement (andantino, doucement expressif) presents the motive (first violin) wrapped so to speak in a veil of melody and thus disguised. The last movement, beginning slowly and working up to frenzy, brings every sort of fragmentary suggestion of this motive. It is particularly noticeable in augmentation (first violin) about the middle of the movement; and this middle section is developed to a tremendous climax at the height of which the first violin gives out the whole phrase (avec passion et très contenu) in broad octaves. A short coda (très vif) brings yet another transformation.
The style of the whole quartet is decidedly homophonic. There are some measures, now and then passages of several measures, in which there is only an harmonic effect; but for the most part there is one instrument treated as the solo instrument; usually the first violin. Page after page presents the familiar scheme of melody and accompaniment. There is almost no trace of a polyphonic method, none of conventional counterpoint, of fugal imitations.
Such devices were essential to the older quartet style.Accompaniment figures were abominable in music which passed through definite and long harmonic sections. Even the tremolo was not often satisfactory, and, being indistinct, tended to make the style orchestral. But here we have to do with a fluent harmony that is almost never still, that does not settle, as it were, into well-defined lakes of sound on which a theme may start forth with all sail set. Hence the accompanying parts move with a free and wide motion. The style is flexible and animated, and thoroughly suited to the quartet.
The fineness of Debussy’s conceptions offers the key to the subtlety of his technique. He handles the instruments with a touch the delicacy of which has hardly been equalled. He has new things to whisper. The whirring figures beginning in the thirteenth measure, the triplet figures (in sixth) after another statement of the principal motive, over which, or interlaced with which, there is a melody for violin, followed strangely by the viola; the wide accompanying figures for violin and cello in contrary motion, not long before the end of the first movement; all these are effects proper, though somewhat new, to the quartet style. The first section of the second movement is a masterpiece of quartet writing. Each instrument is at odds with the others. In listening one could hardly say how many different parts were at work in the music. Nowhere has the pizzicato been used with better effect. The second section of the same movement offers a contrasting effect of vagueness and quiet. The slow movement is newly beautiful, and the last movement dramatic. By the treatment of the instruments the quartet may stand as a masterpiece, the most conspicuous development properly in quartet technique since the last quartets of Beethoven.
The quartet in F major by Maurice Ravel shows an instinct for the instruments not less sensitive or delicate,and in a few places even more bold. But the form of the work is more conventionally organized than that of Debussy. There are distinct themes, regularly constructed in four-measure phrases, and occurring regularly according to established plans. The harmonies, however, are all fluent, so that the sound of the work belies its close kinship to the past.
And Ravel is a master of the quartet style. The opening measures have a suave polyphonic movement. There is polyphony in the treatment of the second theme as it is taken up by second violin and woven with a counter-melody by the first. And when he is not polyphonic he has the same subtlety of harmonic procedure that distinguishes Debussy’s quartet. The beginning of the second movement (assez vif—très rythmé) seems to me not so extraordinary as the beginning of the second movement in Debussy’s quartet, but it offers a brilliant example of the use of pizzicato effects. The muted sections in the middle of this movement; the accompaniment figuresquasi arpa; the same sort of figures in the following slow movement combined with pizzicato notes of the cello; and the extraordinary figures in the 5/4 section of the last movement, indeed all the last movement, are all signs of the new development in a quartet style which is not an orchestral style.
Finally the quartet, opus 7, by Arnold Schönberg. The work was composed in 1905. Among earlier works there are songs, a string sextet,Verklärte Nacht, theGurre-Lieder, for solo voices, chorus and orchestra, and a symphonic poem, ‘Pelleas and Melisande.’ Later works include a second string quartet (1907-8), five pieces for orchestra, a monodrama,Erwartung, and a few pieces for pianoforte.
TheVerklärte Nachtis a work of rich, sensuous beauty. At the head of the score are printed lines from a poem by Richard Dehmals, which are either utterlydecadent or naïve. They are beautiful, too. So prefaced, the sextet proves to be a symphonic poem, in which the composer has chosen to confine himself to the limited possibilities of tone color within the range of the six instruments. There are two violins, two violas and two cellos. The harmonies are richly varied and free, but not at all unfamiliar. The form is the progressive form made possible by the system of leading or characteristic motives. All follows the poem very closely. The opening is depressed and gloomy. The repeated low D’s (second cello and second viola) seem to suggest the lifeless tread of the man and woman, going unhappily through the cold barren grove. The sadly falling phrases (first viola, later with violins) are indicative of their mood. After considerable development, which clearly stands for the woman’s confession of sin and woe, comes a beautiful section in E major which seems to reflect her dream that in motherhood she should find happiness. This is roughly broken off. The situation demands it. For having come with child by a strange man for whom she had no love, she finds herself now walking with one whom she would have greatly preferred. However, the man is generous, finds that his love for her has made a child of him, and that he and she and the babe unborn are to be transfigured by the strength of that love. At the end, following this amorous exaltation, the music broadens and gradually takes on an almost unearthly beauty.
Technically, as regards the treatment of the instruments, the sextet is extraordinary. The additional cello and viola make it possible to employ the pronounced color of the upper tones of these instruments and at the same time reserve the resonant lower notes as a foundation. Much use is made of harmonics, especially toward the end, where full chords are given that ethereal quality so like a flute that one may easilybe misled into thinking wind instruments must have joined in the ensemble.
The quartet is radically different. The sextet is emotionally rich and vital; the quartet is in the first place a vast intellectual essay. There are moments in the Adagio section, and toward the close, where music speaks in common language thoughts which are noble and inspired. For the most part, however, the quartet is in a language which whatever may be its future is incomprehensible to many today. One approaches it as through a new grammar. One must first seek to master the logic behind it, both in the matter of its broad form and in the idiom of its harmonies. There are many who feel this language a sort of Esperanto, artificial, not to say factitious. There are more and more who recognize naturalness and spontaneity in it.
As to the harmonic idiom and the mathematical polyphony back of it something has been written in an earlier volume. A detailed analysis of the form is not possible without many examples from the score, for which there is no space in this chapter. Only a few features of it may be touched upon here.
The work is in a single movement, within the limits of which movements which in earlier quartets were separate have been arranged and combined as sections corresponding to the triple divisions in the old-fashioned sonata-form, with a widely extended coda. Where in the classical sonata-form there are single themes, in these divisions there are many themes. Therefore one speaks of a first theme, really a chief-theme,group, of transitionalgroups, of episodic though broadly developed Scherzo and Adagio.
In the first theme group there are three distinct themes. The first is announced at once (D minor) by the first violin, a theme not unlike one of Richard Strauss’. In the fourteenth measure the second theme is brought in by the second violin (D-flat major). Thisis taken up by the first violin, the whole period being eight measures long. The third theme (etwas langsamer) is a combination of a melodic formula (first and second violins) and characteristic harmonies (viola and cello). There follow many pages of polyphonic working with this threefold material. The first theme of the group may be said to predominate. It appears in varied shape throughout the separate parts.
What may be taken as a transitional section, leading to the second theme group, is a long fugato on a new subject. This is introduced by the second violin (first violin with secondary subject) after a considerable ritard and a pause. The passage grows rapidly faster, leading to a tremendous climax; after which the first of the second theme group is announced (first violin,zart bewegt, E-flat major). The second follows shortly after with a change of time (6/4). Here there is beautiful scoring. The first violin is at first silent, the second bearing the melody, the viola giving soft accompaniment figures, the cello sliding down, pianissimo, in long notes. Then the melody is taken by viola, the first violin has the long sliding phrases, the cello the breaking figure. The third part of this section (etwas bewegter) brings out in the first violin a rhythmically varied form of the first theme of the same group.
Now follows the first broad development section (erste Durchführung und Überleitung in Scherzo[80]), which leads to the Scherzo. The entrance of the Scherzo is prepared and easily heard, and the Scherzo itself is scored at first in note for note style. The principal theme is closely related to the subject of the transitional fugue. It works through many stages, nowkräftig, nowsehr zart, to a terrific climax, echoed in harmonics, and savagely terminated. A few mysterious measures, now muted and again without mutes,bring in the Trio (lebhaft, E major) the principal theme of which is of almost folk-song simplicity. The Scherzo is repeated, varied almost beyond recognition. The theme is given first to viola, between strange triplet figures (second violin and cello).
Then follows a second development section, working up again to an overpowering climax, leading to the first theme group, as to the restatement section in the sonata-form. This reëntrance of the theme is truly heroic. The second violin and viola actually dash down upon the opening notes, and the first violin and cello add a frenzy of accompaniment. Now we have the first theme group (shortened) again; and then, instead of the transitional fugue, a long and developed Adagio, page after page of muted music of unearthly, ghostly beauty. Two themes are recognizable, and the section may be divided into three parts, the first of which rests upon the first theme (first violin solo); the second upon the second theme, slower than the first (viola), and the third upon the first again, slightly modified.
After this adagio comes the second theme group, just as the second theme in the restatement section of the classical sonata form.
Finally there is a coda, in lively tempo, a rondo built upon three themes, the first two of which are taken from the adagio. The broad closing section brings back the opening theme of all, in major. The ending is very simple and quiet.
Hence we have one huge movement in sonata form, our old familiar exposition, with its first and second themes and its transitional passages; its development—in which a scherzo is incorporated; its restatement of both themes—with a new transitional passage between them in the shape of an adagio—and its broad, completing coda. The mind of a man has conceived it; and the mind of man can comprehend it.
The harmonies are often hideous, though no note in the entire quartet is without a logical justification in the new grammar. On the other hand, there are moments of ineffable beauty. Whatever the outcome, there can be no denying that the quartet has entered here upon a new stage, far removed from all other music. Only time can tell whether this is an advance, and then only by showing new work when this shall have proved itself a foundation on which to build.
Schönberg has since written another quartet (1907-8). It is not only shorter as a whole than the earlier one, but is divided by pauses into four separate movements. There is, however, a thematic relationship between all four; and the third movement—Litanie—occupies in the scheme the place of aDurchführung, a variation and weaving together of all the previous themes.
The first movement begins and ends in F-sharp minor, and there are two distinct themes: the opening theme (first violin), and, after a broad ritard, a second theme (first violin,sehr ausdrucksvoll). The time is measured yet often free. After a development of the two themes there is afermata, and then a restatement of them; so that on the whole the movement is not difficult to follow, though the second half is complex and long.
The second movement (sehr rasch) is in the nature of a wild scherzo. The rhythmical motive with which it starts (cello, pianissimo) recalls the now ancient style of Wagner. There is no precedent for the following figure (second violin), which is one of the chief elements in this fantastical movement. It is taken up by viola immediately, while both violins present at the same time two equally important motives, one of which is a sort of syncopated shadow of the other. Then,etwas langsamer, the first violin and viola give out yet a fourth motive (in octaves) and out of these four,with many less audible, a cacophonous, spiteful tangle of sounds ensues. There is a Trio section (etwas rascher), and a return of the Scherzo. There is a short coda,sehr rasch, all instruments in unison (or octaves) until the last measures. Then the cello beats out the opening rhythmical figure, fortissimo, on D, the first violin shrieks G-C-sharp over and over again, the viola and second violin fall together through unheard of intervals. There is a hush, a roar, and a hush—a pizzicato note—unison—silence.
Both the third and the fourth movements bring in a soprano voice. The words are from Stephan George;[81]the titles:LitaneiandEntrückung. Here Schönberg has gone beyond the string quartet, and here properly we may leave him. The instruments are busy during theLitaneiwith motives from the first and second movements. The voice is independent of them. There is enormous dramatic force in the climax at the words:
Wacht noch ein SchreiTöte das Sehnen...Schliesse die Wunde!Nimm mir die LiebeGieb mir dein Glück.
Wacht noch ein SchreiTöte das Sehnen...Schliesse die Wunde!Nimm mir die LiebeGieb mir dein Glück.
Wacht noch ein SchreiTöte das Sehnen...Schliesse die Wunde!Nimm mir die LiebeGieb mir dein Glück.
In the last movement there is no appreciable form. There is no harmony, i.e., no regular sequence of keys, though the end falls on a common chord. Even the melody has gone on into a new world.
Schönberg’s style is fundamentally polyphonic, and is in that regard fitting to the quartet. In the use of harmonics and pizzicato he stands a little ahead of his contemporaries. If we can follow Schönberg in his new conception of form and harmony, we should indeed be reactionary if we hesitated longer to admit harmonics and pizzicato into the category of effects proper to quartet music. Moreover, the examples offeredby such exquisite masterpieces as the quartets of Tschaikowsky, Debussy and Ravel must give to such procedures the sanction of good usage. That Schönberg’s material is symphonic in character only goes to prove that the whole question of form and style is at the present day one which no man can definitely answer.
But having admitted the influence of modern virtuosity and of the modern love of sensuous tone coloring into the realm of the string quartet, we face a new idea of the combination of the four instruments of one type. The old idea of the quartet was given fullest expression in the quartets of Beethoven. In the expression of that idea little progress has since been possible. The changes that have come have made of the quartet something like a chamber symphony in which effects of solid sound and of brilliant and pronounced colors predominate, music that has salt for the senses as well as meaning for the spirit. Hence it has lost that traditional quality of abstractness, which was pure and unalloyed, and has become poignant, fiery, pictorial or dramatic. We hear in it now the strumming of wild zithers, now the beat of savage drums, madness and ecstasy, chords that are plucked, chords that float in air, even confusion and riot of sound. The four instruments still remain, but the old idea of the quartet has become lifeless or has passed from among the present ideals of men.