Shostakovich - String Quartet No. 8 In C Minor Opus 110

The String Quartet No. 8, Opus 110 was the only major work that Shostakovich composed outside of Russia.  He was in the East German town of Görlitz. It was shortly after he was forced to join the Communist Party in 1960, and he was there to ostensibly work on music for a film to be made jointly by East German film makers about the bombing of Dresden in World War II. Shostakovich was not inspired to write any film music, but he did write this quartet in three days. Shostakovich wrote a letter to a friend about the quartet:

"While there I was provided with ideal working conditions...The good working conditions were fruitful; while there I composed my Eighth Quartet. There was really no point in racking my brains trying to write film music. At the time I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I wrote this quartet which is ideologically suspect and of no use to anyone. I figured that no one would think of composing a work honoring me after I'm dead, so I'd better do it myself. The title page might read "Dedicated to  the composer himself'". 

The quartet is written in 5 movements without pause: 

I. Largo -  Shostakovich went on in the letter to describe the opening theme of the movement:

"The quartet's main theme is taken from my initials - D, S [E-flat in German notation], C, H [B-flat in German notation].

The movement begins with the solo cello, and in turn all the instruments play the theme, giving it a canonic treatment. The instruments continue to play slowly, and in the next few bars all twelve tones in the chromatic scale are played. The harmonic ambiguity is brought to a stop when the home key of C minor finally arrives, and a quote from his first symphony is played. This entire quartet is full of quotations of his own music, something Shostakovich did often in his later works. The movement suddenly shifts to the next:

II. Allegro molto - The start of this movement is in G-sharp minor, a key that sounds odd in relation to the first movement's delvings in C minor. G major, the dominant of C minor would be the classical progression, but Shostakovich opts for an increase in tension and insecurity. 

The 4-note theme makes its appearance in altered form as the music skids, skitters, and screeches, sometimes quite violently. The movement comes to seamless screeching halt as the music shifts tempo and key, and leads to:

III. Allegretto - This movement is in G minor and repurposes the initial 4-note theme into a grotesque dance. Tension is somewhat relieved, but it's still not music of calmness. The music winds down with a violin solo that leads to:

IV. Largo - One instrument plays a drone as the others play 3 sharply articulated notes in rapid succession. The music then enters into the key of C-sharp minor, with the drone and three notes repeated. The music settles into an uneasy calmness as the volume level is brought down, and the momentum slows to a drag. The feeling is of resigned calmness, a marked contrast to the previous three movements. The drone and 3 note motif reappears, and leads seamlessly to the final movement:

V. Largo - Shostakovich has peppered this quartet with many self-quotations, but there are none in this movement save for the 4-note theme that is now given a contrapuntal treatment as the music remains slow, mournful, and quietly ends in C minor. 

Surprisingly, this quartet is one of Shostakovich's most popular. It has been said that all 5 movements are in different shades of darkness and ambiguity. It was a very emotional work for the composer, as he went on in the letter quoted earlier:

The pseudo-tragedy of this quartet is such that, while I was composing it, the tears just kept streaming down like urine after a half-dozen beers. When I got back home, I tried playing it once or twice on the piano,  and each time I started weeping all over again. But this time, not so much from my pseudo-tragedy, but in amazement of its splendid formal structure. Of course, the self satisfaction implicit in that will no doubt soon be followed by my intoxication on feelings of self-criticism. 

Shostakovich

Ravel - Piano Trio In A Minor

 Maurice Ravel was a different breed of man and musician. He was a free thinker, a trait that was probably inherited from his mother who was not French, but Basque. His mother was raised in Spain, while his father was an engineer born near the French-Swiss border. Ravel was born in a Basque town, and shortly after his birth his family moved to paris. 

Ravel was a talented student, but not a prodigy. He was actually expelled from the Paris Conservatoire twice as he was a student that could only learn under his terms and not under reactionary methods of the school. But he continued to learn and grow in maturity, talent, and craft. 

Ravel's trio was begun in 1914, but he had planned to write eone for a long time before that. He had already written some of the pieces he is known for, such as the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, in versions for piano and orchestra, Pavane pour une infante défunte, also in version for piano and orchestra, as well as other works. 

Ravel was a master of orchestration, so he well understood that piano tone and string tone can be a problem to balance out. He mastered the problem splendidly in the piano trio, and went beyond the more traditional chamber music quality and made the three instruments blossom together orchestrally.    

I. Modéré -  The work begins with a theme stated by the piano, a theme that was inspired by the Basque songs and dances he heard his mother sing when he was a child. It follows the metrical outline of a Basque dance form, the zortziko. The theme has the unusual time signature of 8/8, which breaks down into the repeating pattern of beats 3+2+3 in the right hand with dotted rhythms while the left hand plays in steady quarter notes and rest and eighth notes. This gives a syncopated, just slightly off-kilter feeling to the theme. 

The theme repeats with the violin and cello playing high in their range, two octaves apart. The theme is repeated and the instruments develop the theme while the piano plays a rhapsodic accompaniment. The movement is in sonata form, but Ravel's veneration of the old forms did not deter him from using them in his own way. The second theme is in A minor in a different mood than the first theme. The development has the persistence of the rhythm of the opening theme playing under the second theme, and the themes weave in and out. Despite sounding so ethereal sometimes, the printed page sees Ravel use tremolo and harmonics in the strings and use of the deep bass notes of the piano. It all comes full circle, but the music fits so well together that the return for the recapitulation is not easy to detect in the orchestral fog of the three instruments. A coda brings the first movement to gentle close in the key of C major.

II. Pantoum. Assez vif - A pantoum is a type of poetic form used by French poets that was taken from Malaysian poetry. An oversimplification of it consists of a poem that consists of four line stanzas with specific rhyming schemes between alternating lines. The form was also used by some American poets. Ravel never explained his use of the term, but Debussy set to music a poem by Charles Baudelaire in the form of a pantoum. Perhaps it refers to how Ravel used alternating lines of music in imitation of the poem. Ravel's tempo indication means 'rather fast', and this movement serves as a scherzo in 3/4 meter.

The Strings pizzicato accompany the pianoasthe movement opens. The strings very their playing mode between bowed notes, pizzicato, left-handed pizzicato, and harmonics. The scherzo is followed by a short trio in F major. In the trio, the strings continue to play in 3/4 time, the piano changes its meter to 4/2. When the scherzo returns, it's 3/4 time for all as the music scurries to the end of the movement.

 III. Passacaille. Très large - The passacaglia is an old dance form from Spain that usually is based on an ostinato that opens the work written in triple meter. It is usually quite slow and serious in nature. Ravel's tempo indication in the score is quarter beat = 40, and that is indeed quite slow. The piano opens the movement with the ostinato theme in F-sharp minor that is derived from the first theme heard in the pantoum movement, and each instrument repeats it verbatim while the others comment. The theme is always present throughout the movement in one form or another, and the variations build in complexity, so much so that the piano is written in 3 staves. After a climax is reached, the music slowly goes back as before, and ends up with the piano having final word.

IV. Final. Animé - The last movement begins with the string instruments shimmering; the violin with arpeggios in harmonics, and the cello in double stopped tremolos at the top of its range:

The time signature is in 5/4, and changes to 7/4 off and on through the movement. The complexities and sonorities of the previous movements come to a pinnacle in the finale. Trills, tremolos, wide spaced arpeggios and upper extremes are exploited and lead to a piano trio sounding very orchestral.

 Maurice Ravel

Saint-Saëns - String Quartet No. 1 In E Minor, Opus 112

Camille Saint-Saëns was no stranger to chamber music. He wrote 26 pieces for different chamber ensembles between 1851 and 1898 that included works for violin and piano, cello and piano,  2 piano trios, 2 piano quartets, a piano quintet; even a septet for trumpet, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass, and piano. Conspicuous by its absence is any works for string quartet.  Student, friend, and fellow composer Gabriel Fauré said that, "Saint-Saëns had a fear of it and only risked himself there towards the end of his life."

What could have caused Saint-Saëns,an accomplished composer of orchestral works, operas, and all of his previous chamber works, to shy away from  writing a string quartet? Fauré had his own similar fear of the form, as he didn't write but one string quartet himself, at the age of 79 in 1924, and thought the Beethoven string quartets should strike fear into any composer. And even Beethoven himself composed chamber music for other ensembles besides string quartet until he thought he was worthy to carry on the tradition set down by Haydn and Mozart. Perhaps it was the same with Saint-Saëns, as tradition can be a daunting thing. But the form itself is challenging.

There is no room for fluff, no room to hide any inferior music thought in a string quartet. It is music laid bare. Not to say that the string quartet is not capable of amazing color, verve, excitement, solemness, and emotion. But where a clever bit of orchestration can add flavor and color to music, the string quartet is limited. 

Saint-Saëns composed his first string quartet in 1899 when he was 64 years old, and dedicated it to the young Belgian violinist Eugène  , who perhaps encouraged the writing of it, and played in the premiere of the work. Saint-Saëns wrote a letter to his publisher about the quartet:

If I hadn’t written this quartet, the aestheticians would have drawn all kinds of conclusions from this omission, and they would have found what it was in my nature that had stopped me from writing one and why I was incapable of writing one! Have no doubt about it, I know what they’re like. And all the while I had not accomplished this necessary task, I was afraid of passing away too soon, I could not rest easy. Now I don’t care about any of it.

I. Allegro -  The strings all have their mutes on as the quartet begins with an F-sharp in the 1st violin, and the successive notes in the other three instruments of E, C, and A. Theoretically, this could be a F-sharp minor 7th flattened 5th chord (that's a mouthful!) , which for the home key of E minor of the quartet does not make a lot of harmonic sense. But by using enharmonic change the F-sharp to a G-flat, and the result is an A minor 6th chord. As A minor is the dominant chord in the key of E minor, it makes perfect sense. It would have been bad form for Saint-Saëns to use a G-flat as the time signature already states that all F's are sharp. There is a strong tendency for the dominant chord to lead to the tonic key, and so it does. After a few bars of the A minor introduction, the home key states a somewhat wistful theme that winds its way until the mutes come off and a more powerful section begins, skirts a few other keys in the process, and leads to a more mellow theme that is first stated by the cello and makes its way to the other instruments.  Themes eventually return in various guises, especially the more powerful one that leads to the end of the movement. 

II. Molto allegro quasi presto - Leave it to Saint-Saëns to call for music to be played molto allegro - very fast - quasi presto - sort of even faster. Perhaps he was concerned about excessive speed, and once the music begins it makes more sense. The movement is in 2/4 time, and has a metronome setting of quarter note = 184 beats per minute, a quite brisk tempo indeed, but taken any faster there would be the danger of the quirkiness of the syncopation being blurred. The first violin plays a simple theme that begins an eighth note before the accompaniment, and is tied across the bar line to the next bar. The other instruments play pizzicato.  After the first round of the theme, it is repeated in triplets. All 4 instruments join in the syncopation in a section that leads to the main theme once more, until a middle section in E major is reached. The tempo remains quick as a 4-voiced fugue comprises the middle section. The syncopation returns and plays until there is a slight slowing of the tempo and the key changes for a short section in E major. After that, the syncopation returns, with all instruments playing pianissimo. The 1st violin joins the others pizzicato as the movement quietly ends.

III. Molto adagio - The next movement in A Major gives contrast by its calm sweetness, but this movement also has a section marked appassionato. The 1st violin has the most to say, and the movement ends in harmonics high in the range of all 4 instruments.

IV.  Allegro non troppo - The music returns to E minor and restlessness, somewhat in the vein of the 2nd movement, but not nearly so relentless. There is plenty of tension as different rhythms are explored, as once again the 1st violin takes the lead in virtuosity as in the third movement and other parts of the quartet. Saint-Saëns probably had Ysaÿe the dedicatee in mind, for he was one of the premiere virtuoso violinists of the time, and he not only wanted to give him something to show his abilities with, but his own capabilities of violin writing as well. The movement builds to the final section marked Molto allegro as the quartet comes to a passionate close.

Saint-Saëns

Franck - Violin Sonata In A Major

After a youth spent in musical study, composition and performing, César Franck went the way of a family man as he married and settled down to make a living as a church organist and teacher. 

When he was hired as the organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire, Franck began to compose more, and it was this time in his life when he wrote the works that he is most remembered for. The Violin Sonata In A Major was composed by Franck in 1886 when he was 63 years old and became one of his most popular pieces. The first public performance was in December of 1886, but a private first performance of this happened on the wedding day in September of the virtuoso violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. Franck had given the sonata to him as a wedding present, and after the wedding and a quick rehearsal, Ysaÿe and his pianist sister-in-law gave a performance to the wedding guests. Ysaÿe  kept the sonata in his repertoire for 40 years and helped promote Franck's music. The sonata remains one of the most popular works of Franck, as well as one of the most popular violin sonatas in the repertoire. The sonata is so popular that it exists in many transcriptions for other instruments, but the version for cello and piano is the only one sanctioned by Franck.

Franck didn't live to see much of his music become truly popular with the public. The handful of works that he is remembered for, among them the Symphony In D Minor, Piano Quintet In F Minor, and the Violin Sonata In A, were all written in the last years of his life. He was very influential with his students at the Paris Conservatoire, and they as well as friends such as Ysaÿe kept his music before the public. 

I. Allegretto ben moderato - The movement has but two themes, the first one is a sweet song for the violin as the piano accompanies. Originally Franck wanted this movement to be played very slowly, but it was Ysaÿe that convinced him by his performance of the piece to increase the tempo to allegretto. 

The second theme is for the piano alone. The themes go through various keys as was Franck's style at the time to be quite chromatic. The two themes don't merge together in the relatively short movement, but maintain their individual character with each repetition. The violin's theme especially reappears in other movements. The movement ends quietly in the home key.

II. Allegro - The next movement is in D minor and is essentially a scherzo for the piano with another layer added to it with the violin's part. The piano begins the movement and plays for 13 turbulent bars before the violin enters and reinforces the piano's theme that is there amongst the filigree passages. 

The music gradually becomes slower until a section marked Quasi lento, where parts of themes heard in the first movement are reminisced over. This section continues for a few bars until the music gradually shifts keys to C-sharp minor and the scherzo returns. The music shifts once again in key, this time to C minor as it works its way back to the key of D minor with continual references to themes heard in the first movement. Another key change to D major for a short section that leads to a section marked Poco piu lento. The violin part is labeled con fantasia and as the previous slow section, this is brief and leads to D minor returning as the scherzo slowly begins again. The violin as well as the piano becomes turbulent, and leads to a bright ending to the movement in D major. 

III. Ben moderato: Recitativo-Fantasia - The key signature is ostensibly A minor, but the chromaticism of the music doesn't dwell in any one key very long. The piano begins the third movement playing three bars with the violin entering near the ends of the 4th bar with the designation largamente con fantasia, which roughly means slowly and freely. The violin and piano are partners in music that does much chromatic roaming, with waxing and waning of tempo and feeling. The key shifts to F-sharp minor and the music becomes very tender and tranquil, and then turns more dramatic. Near the end a section has the violin play a very recognizable variant of the first theme of the first movement. The music grows quiet, and the movement ends.

IV. Allegretto poco mosso - The violin's theme is tagged along by the piano a few steps behind. The mood of the movement is more or less pleasant in nature, but there are more passionate sections. 

More references to what has gone before appear, as Franck makes his way to the sunny ending.

Haydn- Symphony No. 101 'Clock'

The dozen symphonies Haydn wrote for Johann Peter Salomon, the impresario that coaxed Haydn to come to London, represent Haydn at his best. They are the culmination of many years of composition and Haydn made sure that they were the finest he could produce,  twelve masterpieces of the symphonic form that were written in London and Vienna over a five year period, for performance at Salomon's concerts.   Haydn made two visits to London, each time an extended stay that saw him not only giving concerts but meeting all kinds of people and being lavishly entertained at parties. He was a celebrity, the most famous composer in Europe at the time. He was a composer with a huge reputation that he was not aware of, due to his being isolated in the Esterhazy palace in the woods of Hungary. But his music had been known by many, and the English were particularly taken with his music.

I. Adagio - Presto - Symphony 101 begins with a dark, brooding introduction that has a sense of foreboding. But it ends up being one of Haydn's little jokes, as the music suddenly lightens in mood with the playing of the main theme.  The second theme is stated first in the violins, then the winds.  The development section has the themes being transformed and varied. The recapitulation leads to a short coda that rounds out the movement.

II. Andante - The second movement is where the nickname 'clock' come from, due to the pizzicato strings and staccato bassoon accompaniment sounding like the ticking of a clock. Haydn changes keys, expands and contracts the music and keeps interest in the music by the return of the 'clock' accompaniment, but this time it is played by the flutes and bassoons. After some more 'ticking' the movement draws to a quiet close.

III. Menuetto: Allegretto - The third movement  is marked minuet,  but it is far from the graceful dance of the French court. Haydn has written a heavily accented German peasant dance that merrily stomps its way until the more laid back trio, but the stomping appears here and there in the trio as well. Finally the peasant's happy foot stomping silences the trio, the dance is repeated and clomps to the end.

IV. Vivace - The finale's two themes are stated in the beginning, repeated, and then are woven through a development section until there is a fugal section that uses the first theme. The fugue works its way through the entire orchestra, and the movement ends with the first theme, and a short coda.

Joseph Haydn

Mozart - Sonata For Piano And Violin In E Minor K.304

Mozart had traveled extensively in Europe as a child prodigy, and after visiting many of the capitals of 18th century Europe between the years 1762 to 1773, he settled into a position as court musician at Salzburg. His low wages and discontent at the court prompted him (with full encouragement from his father Leopold) to travel to other areas and look for a new position.

He resigned his position at court and began a trip with his mother in September of 1777. He traveled to Mannheim, Paris and Munich and on this trip he met many other musicians and continued to compose. The trip didn't end up with any new employment, and added to that disappointment was the death of his mother in Paris in 1778.  While he was on this trip he composed seven Sonatas For Keyboard And Violin as well as other music. Six of these sonatas were published in Paris in 1778.

There was once the thought that this sonata in E minor was written after his mother had died, but there is no evidence for that. Out of 36 Sonatas For Keyboard And Violin, it is the only one written in a minor key and the only instrumental work that Mozart ever wrote in E minor. The title of all of Mozart's works in this genre is a reflection of the era in which they were written. These were essentially keyboard sonatas with violin accompaniment, but Mozart and other composers were changing the genre so that the violin was more of an equal participant. The Sonata For Piano And Violin In E Minor is in two movements:

I. Allegro -  Evidence of the equal partnership between keyboard and violin begins straight away with the first theme played in unison by both instruments:

The second dotted rhythm theme delves into G major, but the exposition is dominated by the first theme. The short development section is also concerned with the first theme. The recapitulation has the second theme modulate to the minor, and after a short coda the movement ends.

II. Tempo di minuetto - This movement also begins in E minor and makes excursions into other major keys. But it returns to the contemplative and graceful minuet melody. The middle section is music in the calming key of E major. The plaintive minuet returns and with a short coda the sonata is brought to a close.

  Mozart

Haydn - Cello Concerto No. 2 In D Major Hob. VII/2

Haydn's employment by the rich and famous Esterhazy family at their hunting lodge palace deep in the forests of Hungary assured that he would have a ready-made audience,  and although Prince Esterhazy would have had other musicians visit on occasion, Haydn would be in relative isolation and as he wrote in his own words:

“My sovereign was satisfied with all my endeavors. I was assured of applause and, as head of an orchestra, was able to experiment, to find out what enhances and detracts from effect, in other words, to improve, add, delete, and try out. As I was shut off from the world, no one in my surroundings would vex and confuse me, and so I was destined for originality.”
The sheer amount of music Haydn composed in his thirty-odd year employment by the Prince is staggering. Symphonies, operas, chamber music, and concertos rolled off Haydn's pen one right after the other. The Cello Concerto No.2 also shows that Haydn had some top-notch players in his small symphony orchestra. Anton Kraft was a cellist in the Prince's employ and Haydn wrote the 2nd concerto to highlight his talents.  After the split up of the Prince's orchestra in 1790, Kraft went on to be regarded as the foremost master of the cello in Vienna, no mean feat in the city of music and musicians.

Haydn began composing the concerto in 1783, close to the time when Haydn himself had been startled to learn that while he may have felt isolated at the Esterhazy Palace,  the world had caught up with his music and he was a famous man. It was also about this time that he received the commission for the 'Paris' symphonies.

The concerto is in three movements:

I. Allegro moderato -  The first movement lacks the tension and contrast that Haydn's first movements can have. There is a leisure feeling to it,  and the orchestra never overshadows the soloist. Haydn' puts the spotlight firmly on the cellist.

II.Adagio - The cello shows off its ability to sing when a master is playing it.

III.Rondo (Allegro) -  The rondo is built out of the motif first heard in the cello, and like the first movement there is very little tension. The work ends simply, but charmingly.

The cello concerto is not one of Haydn's most difficult pieces, but the solo part is very challenging in the first and last movements as Haydn demands playing in double stops and octaves. The concerto is meant to be played by a virtuoso such as Anton Kraft, someone who can throw off the covert virtuosity of the piece and make the cello sing.