PAVEL HAAS QUARTET

Lenard Chamber Music Event

Veronika Jarůšková, violin; Marek Zwiebel, violin; Šimon Truszka, viola; Peter Jarůšek, cello

Program Notes

String Quartet in G major, Op. 76, No. 1, Hob. III:75

Joseph Haydn

(Born March 31, 1732, in Rohrau; died May 31, 1809, in Vienna)

In 1795, Joseph Haydn returned from his second visit to London and settled in Vienna to live out his remaining years. By the standards of the time, Haydn was experiencing unusual longevity. Mozart, whom Haydn had greatly admired, had died four years before, and Beethoven, at this time, was still quite young. England had showered wealth and honors on Haydn, and he had lingered there for two months after his last concert before going home to the Continent.

With the death of Prince Nikolaus in 1790, Haydn was able to experience greater freedom, all the while continuing to enjoy the title and emoluments of his position as Kapellmeister to the Prince's successors. No one had any idea how different the work of Haydn’s last years would be from what had preceded it. He had written more than a hundred symphonies, but after the dozen masterpieces that he had composed expressly for London audiences, he never wrote another. Yet with the knowledge of Handel’s oratorios that he had acquired in London, Haydn took on the project of modernizing and revitalizing that form in his own The Creation and The Seasons. He also composed six masses and some other sacred music for the princely Esterházy family for whom he had served as staff conductor and composer for thirty years.

Haydn’s greatest music until this time had always been found in his instrumental works. Over a period of forty years, Haydn composed over sixty-eight string quartets, and, in the last years, he wrote almost no instrumental music except a few string quartets that sum up a lifetime of supreme invention. His achievement in the string quartet form is as remarkable in quality as in quantity. His development of it in the 1780s even encompassed and reflected the influence of his younger contemporary, Mozart, who had been influenced in turn by Haydn, and who dedicated a set of quartets to the elder master.

Count Joseph Erdödy, Chamberlain and the Privy State Counselor to the Emperor, commissioned the six Op. 76 Quartets in the late 1790’s, and of course, Haydn dedicated them to him. The Erdödys were an important family, noble and musical, related by marriage to Haydn’s former employers, the Esterházys. Count Ladislaus Erdödy is listed among the subscribers to Mozart’s Vienna concerts in 1783, and Beethoven dedicated his two Trios, Op. 70 (1808), and two Cello Sonatas, Op. 102 (1815), to his pupil, Countess Maria, wife of Count Peter Erdödy. The Count belonged to a group of noblemen that included Count Appónyi, to whom, in 1799, Haydn dedicated the Opus 74 Quartets, and Prince Lobkowitz, to whom he dedicated the last two completed Quartets, Opus 77.

Haydn completed the set of six quartets, Op. 76, of which this work is the first, in 1797; he published the set two years later. After the Op. 77, which followed, he began another quartet in 1803, but gave up after two movements that he allowed to be published in 1806 with the apologetic message, “All my strength is gone; I am old and weak.” The last eight completed quartets have the kind of controlled freedom that comes only with great maturity, and their rich instrumental texture is very modern for its time; some historians have even said it anticipates Brahms. Almost every movement of these six quartets makes some sort of journey away from the acknowledged norms of the period in a way that draws the listener’s attention as well as extends the quartet form.

In Quartet No. 1 of Op. 76, numbered variously as No. 60, No. 40, and No. 75, the latter in the Hoboken catalog, where it is designated Hob.III:75, the cello declares the first theme of the first movement, Allegro con spirito, after three opening chords have commanded the listeners’ attention of the listener. This movement is in sonata form, and each instrument, in turn, has a version of the main subject, taking up the theme. Unexpected harmonies lead to the innocent-sounding second theme, stated briefly. In the development section, Haydn concentrates on the first theme mostly and then restates it in the recapitulation with a contrapuntal accompaniment.

The slow movement, Adagio sostenuto, again in sonata form, contrasts with a very serious sounding theme. The cello is accompanied by the second violin and viola, and then that material is complemented by a faster figure in the first violin.

The spirited, quick and short Menuetto: Presto, sports a Trio in which the first violin has ambitious lines. The Finale: Allegro ma non troppo, in G minor has a significant opening figure that is heard throughout the movement. Counterpoint enriches this movement of considerable harmonic interest.

Quartet No. 2, H. 150

Bohuslav Martinů

(Born December 8, 1890 in Policka, Bohemia, now the Czech Republic; died August 28, 1959, in Liestal, Switzerland)

Bohuslav Martinů was born and lived his early years in the church bell-tower of a tiny Bohemian town where his father was a watchman and cobbler. At the age of eight, Martinů made his debut performing; at ten, he began to compose. When he was sixteen, he entered the Prague Conservatory but was not successful as a student because the academic discipline conflicted with his personal artistic interests and his private creative needs. For a decade as an adult, Martinů performed as a violinist, a member of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, whose conductor Václav Talich encouraged him as a composer.

Although Martinů took a part of Josef Suk’s composition course at the Prague Conservatory and studied with composer Albert Roussel in Paris, he was essentially self-taught as a composer. His hundreds of compositions cover an enormous range of media and of expressive character; his best works have a rhythmic and melodic vigor that make them directly appealing.

Martinů spent time in Paris in the 1920s; he left Prague in 1940; in 1941, he came to the United States. In 1946, while he was working on his Quartet No. 6, the Prague Conservatory offered him a teaching position.

Eager to return to home, he sent his wife to Czechoslovakia to prepare their move. Martinů stayed in New York to finish his composition, but most unfortunately, he had a freak accident and fell off the balcony of his apartment and was very seriously injured. He recovered but suffered from a nervous shock, partial hearing, and memory loss. He was then only fifty-six years old, and luckily, was gradually able to resume work, although the accident took a permanent toll on his physical and creative energy. In 1953, he returned to Europe to spend his last years in France and Switzerland.

Martinů was a kind, quiet, and gentle man who lived a simple life, unburdened by possessions, and, at times, he barely kept himself above the level of simple poverty. His fluent, colorful orchestral style made his music very popular with such important conductors of a generation or two ago as Serge Koussevitsky, George Szell, and Charles Munch, as well as with their audiences.

Two years before composing this quartet, Martinů moved to Paris, in order to immerse himself in the vibrant music environment there. Prior to that, he was isolated in musically conservative Prague for the years of World War I. He composed Quartet No. 1 in Czechoslovakia in 1918; it is twice as long as this quartet, but it pleasant to listen to, if quite derivative. In Paris, Martinů gained his stride as a composer and wrote the moving and very charming but relatively brief second quartet in 1925; it was published in 1927. It is not altogether clear where he composed the quartet: some contend he wrote it in Paris, while others say that he wrote it in his hometown of Policka, Czechoslovakia, while he was there on vacation that year.

By the time of this work, which is strikingly full of rhythmic variety and melodic invention, Martinů had achieved control over his musical materials and form. He wrote this quartet to be played at the inaugural concert of the Novák-Frank Quartet string quartet, a group consisting of violinist Vitezslav Novak (Martinů’s friend), Maurits Frank, (a member of the Amar Quartet), Josef Stika, and Bohumil Klabik. Some sources say that Martinů composed the quartet in only eighteen days, while others comment on his unusually protracted compositional process for this work, which may have lasted eight months and was particularly notable as he was known for his rapid work. He revised this quartet extensively; after the work was performed publicly for the first time, he reworked it, based on feedback he received. The work was published by Universal Editions as Quartet No. 2 even though Martinů had actually composed two quartets before it, not counting student works. The first of the two previous works remains unnumbered.

Quartet No. 2 was immediately very successful at its Paris premiere and when performed in Prague, a reviewer praised Martinů as “the heir of Dvorak’s vigor.” Martinů discussed the composition, which has a distinct Czech flavor, with his composition teacher, Albert Roussel: “Roussel has probably given up on me, but he likes the pieces nonetheless, and we go through them in detail. I have to take his lessons because it is in the contract with the ministry. But he is an immensely kind person and he hardly corrects anything from me anymore,” but musicologists feel the quartet does reflect the effect Roussel had had on Martinů’s work during the two years before its composition.

Each of the instruments in the quartet displays a unique identity; the independence Martinu gives them is often emphasized by their dissonant clashes with each other. Quite a bit more mature than his first quartet, this quartet displays Martinů’s rhythmic energy, a varied musical color palette, and a significant gift for melody. The vigorous rhythms and his lively spirit infuse the outer movements.

The first movement begins with an introductory Moderato that announces the main idea. The body of the movement, a highly rhythmic Allegro vivace, introduces two more themes, but all three grow from the same germ. Although the movement overall is full of energy and is chromatic and rich, the composer does provide an element of contrast with the second rustic folk-like theme.

The central movement, Andante, projects a sense of stasis and tension overall, but its intensity is relieved somewhat in the middle of the movement, which has more momentum, Moderato. Although the movement feels harmonically unchanging, it is, nevertheless, highly expressive; its unusual character results from Martinů’s imaginative writing for the low registers of the violins.

The final movement, Allegro – Allegro ma non troppo, begins in a lighter vein and projects a feeling of the folklike spirit one hears in the first movement. It has exciting rhythms and pleasing melodies; perhaps its most outstanding feature, and one very unusual for a quartet, is the full-blown virtuosic violin cadenza. This last movement expresses the folklike spirit one hears in the first movement.

String Quartet in D Major, No. 3, Op. 34 Erich Korngold

(Born May 29, 1897, in Brno, Czechoslovakia; died November 29, 1957, in Hollywood, California)

In the years before the First World War, Erich Korngold, who became one of the most popular and successful composers of his time in Europe, was widely believed to be a musical prodigy on the order of Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Saint-Saëns. His father was an influential Austrian music critic who gave him his first lessons. Both Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler declared the boy to be an extraordinary genius. Artur Schnabel played a piano sonata that Korngold wrote at thirteen, and when he was fifteen, he was praised by Richard Strauss who said, on hearing Korngold’s works, “One’s first reactions on learning that they were composed by an adolescent are awe and fear!” Even Puccini was greatly impressed by an opera Korngold wrote at the age of nineteen. Although his mature career turned out quite different from any of theirs, he did indeed become an important creative artist.

As the years passed, he composed for the concert and dramatic stages and was appointed to Vienna’s most distinguished professorship, but because of the increasing hardships visited upon Jews in Austria, Max Reinhardt, the great Viennese producer-director, brought Korngold to the United States, inviting him to arrange Mendelssohn’s music for a Hollywood film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Korngold arrived in Hollywood in 1934 and quickly became a part of both its music and its film world. He socialized with Charlie Chaplin, the Marx brothers, and Bette Davis, and although he and another expatriate composer, Arnold Schoenberg, did not see eye to eye musically, they and their families became surprisingly close friends in California.

Korngold took to film scoring as if he were composing opera and later said so: “Just as I do for the operatic stage, I try to invent for the motion picture dramatically melodious music with symphonic development and variation of the themes.” Working for Warner Bros., he became the most important (and best paid) composer of modern symphonic film music during Hollywood’s Golden Years. For the next four years,

Korngold made annual trips to Hollywood from Austria until 1938 when Nazi Germany invaded Austria; at the time, Korngold was in California working on another movie score; he decided to stay there. During World War II, Korngold decided to give up composing any music other than the film music whose revenues he badly needed to support himself and his family, but after the war, he returned to composing for the concert hall. Over a period of twenty years, he wrote twenty-one extraordinary film scores, winning two Academy Awards for them. Movie-goers thrilled to his brash, swashbuckling themes, the sumptuously scored love music, and the grandly heroic evocations of historical pageantry in his film scores, but concert music occupied his later years, when he wrote a string quartet, a symphony, and a violin concerto.

Korngold could not bring himself to compose new concert works while the Nazis were in power and began a self-imposed silence that lasted until 1944. Completed in 1945, Quartet No. 3 was the first work of non-film music that he composed since before the war. He began the work secretly in 1944 and presented the sketches for it to his wife as a Christmas present, completely catching her off-guard: “I had suspected nothing about the quartet; he had avoided the subject, and had not struck even a single note on the piano.” Korngold completed composition of the quartet in July 1945. He presumably played it on the piano for Alma Mahler (Gustav Mahler’s wife), a childhood acquaintance who was also living in Los Angeles at the time. The Quartet was not premiered until January 1949 at the Wilshire Ebell Theater in Los Angeles by the New Art Quartet with Israel Baker and George Berres, violins; Milton Thomas, viola; and William Van den Burg, cello. In the quartet, Korngold incorporated themes from his films, assuming that his film scores would soon be forgotten. He dedicated the four-movement quartet to his friend, the great conductor Bruno Walter, who also was living in Hollywood at the time. The first movement, Allegro moderato, follows traditional sonata form, with a shifting, restless, highly chromatic opening theme followed by a more nostalgic, relaxed, and lyrically expressive second theme. The first theme descends chromatically while the second theme ascends in small steps. The second theme rises a fourth, then an octave: “Avanti!” (“Go for it!”), Korngold noted in the score; simultaneously, the first theme’s descending intervals become more distorted; it is only at the movement’s end that resolution is reached.

The Scherzo, in ternary form (ABA) with macabre dance-like quality and restless chromaticism, has been said to portray sparkling car lights as well as Korngold’s hope for Hitler’s demise. The Trio section uses a melody from the film Between Two Worlds, Korngold’s favorite film score. Contrasting with the two outer sections, the central Trio expresses warm romanticism.

Romantic film music also pervades the slow movement marked “like a folk tune.” Its modal theme is constructed from the interval of ascending fourths. Here, the main theme comes from the love music of the 1941 film The Sea Wolf, with its rocking rhythm evoking the motion of the ocean. The theme appears again in several variations, some of them dark and macabre. Near the end, a descending three-note motif is repeated many times; it has been interpreted as the haunting call of a siren.

The Finale, Allegro con fuoco, is all energy, virtuosity, and fiery, spirited behavior. Korngold would use the second theme again in his final film score, Deception, about the Brontë sisters. At the end of the movement, he brings the first movement’s descending theme back again fleetingly, as well as the distorted ascending inversion, but the movement’s conclusion is strongly tonal.

Program Notes by Susan Halpern, 2023

A world leader in the evolving art form of modern dance for over 90 years