VERDI: STRING QUARTET - QUARTETTO DI VENEZIA Liner Notes

Giuseppe VERDI

String Quartet in E Minor

QUARTETTO DI VENEZIA

VERDI:

String Quartet in E Minor

I. Allegro 08:23

II. Andantino 08:12

III. Prestissimo 03:15

IV. Scherzo Fuga: Allegro assai mosso 04:45

Giuseppe Verdi’s String Quartet is something of an anomaly in the catalog-and that’s putting it mildly. It is Verdi’s only piece of chamber music; indeed, it is the only important instrumental work from the composer’s maturity. Why did Verdi - a man who expended almost all of his creative energy on operas (and an unusually operatic Requiem Mass) - suddenly set to writing a string quartet in March 1873? The answer is simple and not very romantic: he wrote the quartet to kill time. Verdi was in Naples to supervise the local premiere of Aida; when the rehearsals were held up (due to the illness of soprano Teresa Stolz) he used the delay to fashion the four movements of the quartet.

Verdi, who was then 60 years old and at the height of his fane, always insisted that he composed the quartet for his private diversion, and he initially refused to allow any public performances. Finally, in 1876, it was published and has since earned a modest but secure place in the repertoire.

Verdi’s quartet is expertly made, full of busy counterpoint, direct and convincing in its emotional argument. Many claim to hear echoes of Aida in the opening movement, while there is an unusually Viennese quality to the theme and variations in the following Andantino. The Scherzo, marked “Prestissimo, ” is compact and quicksilver in its succession of moods, while the Finale prefigures the melodious chatter of the closing fugue of Falstaff.