Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart found himself, in the summer of 1781, in Vienna, the place he
had always wanted to be. The irritating issue of his onerous employment to the Archbishop
of Salzburg had had a fortuitous and surprise ending: the Archbishop summoned Mozart
to Vienna, where his eminence was in residence for the coronation of the new Elector, in
order to curtail Mozart’s growing freelance profile (he had just scored a great success with
Idomeneo in Munich). Matters came to a head; Mozart was dismissed (”with a kick on my
arse,” as he so eloquently wrote to his father), and was free and clear – though rather poor
– in the musical capital of Europe.
By the end of that year, Mozart had established himself as the finest keyboard talent in Vienna. His circle of friends grew as well; evenings were spent playing chamber music with other musicians, including the great Joseph Haydn. Haydn had just composed his Op. 33 string quartets, which instantly became the archetype of the mature ‘Classical’ string quartet. Mozart studied (and no doubt played) these quartets assiduously before composing his own set of six, dedicated to Haydn and now known as Mozart’s “Haydn Quartets.” The dedication letter is touching, and worth quoting at some length:
To my dear friend Haydn,
A father who had resolved to send his children out into the great world took
it to be his duty to confide them to the protection and guidance of a very celebrated Man, especially when the latter by good fortune was at the same
time his best Friend. Here they are then, O great Man and dearest Friend, these six children of mine. They are, it is true, the fruit of a long and laborious endeavor, yet the hope inspired in me by several Friends that it may be at least partly compensated encourages me, and I flatter myself that this offspring will serve to afford me solace one day. You, yourself, dearest friend, told me of your satisfaction with them during your last Visit to this Capital. It is this indulgence above all which urges me to commend them to you and encourages me to hope that they will not seem to you altogether unworthy of your favour...
Haydn heard the quartets as a listener, rather than a player, in early 1785 at Mozart’s apartment. Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang’s father, later reported to Nannerl (Wolfgang’s sister) Haydn’s now famous reaction: “Before God, and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste, and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition."
Motivic independence and contrapuntal textures predominate in the six “Haydn” quartets, as well as wider emotional swings and rich, expressive slow movements. Some contemporaries derided the “learned” style of the music and the perceived need to “be unusual” (the last of the set, the so-called Dissonance quartet, was even sent back by the printer as being “full of errors”). Today these works are recognized as the pinnacle of the Classical quartet, and are among the most performed works in the repertoire.
The String Quartet in D minor, K421, the second quartet of the set and the one we shall hear today, is the only minor-key work of the six. Perhaps the choice of mode was premonitory: the work was composed in June of 1783, at the same time as Constanze
By the end of that year, Mozart had established himself as the finest keyboard talent in Vienna. His circle of friends grew as well; evenings were spent playing chamber music with other musicians, including the great Joseph Haydn. Haydn had just composed his Op. 33 string quartets, which instantly became the archetype of the mature ‘Classical’ string quartet. Mozart studied (and no doubt played) these quartets assiduously before composing his own set of six, dedicated to Haydn and now known as Mozart’s “Haydn Quartets.” The dedication letter is touching, and worth quoting at some length:
To my dear friend Haydn,
A father who had resolved to send his children out into the great world took
it to be his duty to confide them to the protection and guidance of a very celebrated Man, especially when the latter by good fortune was at the same
time his best Friend. Here they are then, O great Man and dearest Friend, these six children of mine. They are, it is true, the fruit of a long and laborious endeavor, yet the hope inspired in me by several Friends that it may be at least partly compensated encourages me, and I flatter myself that this offspring will serve to afford me solace one day. You, yourself, dearest friend, told me of your satisfaction with them during your last Visit to this Capital. It is this indulgence above all which urges me to commend them to you and encourages me to hope that they will not seem to you altogether unworthy of your favour...
Haydn heard the quartets as a listener, rather than a player, in early 1785 at Mozart’s apartment. Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang’s father, later reported to Nannerl (Wolfgang’s sister) Haydn’s now famous reaction: “Before God, and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste, and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition."
Motivic independence and contrapuntal textures predominate in the six “Haydn” quartets, as well as wider emotional swings and rich, expressive slow movements. Some contemporaries derided the “learned” style of the music and the perceived need to “be unusual” (the last of the set, the so-called Dissonance quartet, was even sent back by the printer as being “full of errors”). Today these works are recognized as the pinnacle of the Classical quartet, and are among the most performed works in the repertoire.
The String Quartet in D minor, K421, the second quartet of the set and the one we shall hear today, is the only minor-key work of the six. Perhaps the choice of mode was premonitory: the work was composed in June of 1783, at the same time as Constanze
Mozart was giving birth to the couple’s first child. Wolfgang and Constanze set out for
Salzburg the following month in order to introduce Constanze to her father-in-law, who
had disapproved of the marriage. Raimund Leopold, the infant, was left behind – only to
die while his parents were still away.
Felix Mendelssohn has a few unfair strikes against him: prodigiously talented, and from a privileged background, he produced music with an uncommon fluency and a disarming transparency. Adjectives such as “elfin lightness” contribute to the general impression of Mendelssohn as a musical lightweight, a dilettante among serious men. As one of history’s true composer prodigies he produced masterpieces such as the scherzo to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Octet while still in his teens. Despite his obvious talent, music as a profession was discouraged by his family (young Felix received a letter from his banker- Uncle, which declared that “music is neither a profession nor a career – one is no further ahead at the end of one’s life than at the beginning, and what is worse, one knows it”). Professional music-making was definitely out of the question for Fanny, Mendelssohn’s talented sister; their father declared such an outcome “inconceivable.” By his middle teens, however, Mendelssohn’s tremendous aptitude for composing and performing had won his father’s support.
Perhaps as a result of Mendelssohn’s early facility, much of his “mature” work gets short shrift, as if the promise of youth was somehow lost to an indolent adulthood. In fact, Mendelssohn was one of Europe’s busiest musicians in the 1830s and 40s as a virtuoso pianist and prominent conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. The travel schedule of his last few years is astonishing, especially considering the slowness of 19th century modes of transportation: Düsseldorf, London, Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, London again, back to Berlin, Dresden, Aachen, London again, Birmingham, Berlin, Switzerland, Leipzig, Berlin... Hardly the schedule of a man so talented that he remained unburdened by the need for hard work. Schumann, a man who was always quick to credit the talent of others, adored Mendelssohn; upon hearing Mendelssohn’s first Piano trio, Schumann dubbed him the “Mozart of the 19th century”.
Mendelssohn played violin as a child and wrote several early chamber works for strings, including 12 fugues for string quartet (at the age of twelve) and an early, complete string quartet in 1823. Of the six complete and mature string quartets by Mendelssohn, the String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op. 80 is the darkest and most striking. It was composed after the sudden death of Mendelssohn’s beloved sister Fanny, who suffered a stroke at a rehearsal of her brother’s music. For a short time Mendelssohn was unable to write music at all, but by the summer of 1847 he began to compose again, writing this string quartet. Its style is altogether different from his other quartets. Gone are the quasi-Song Without Words slow movements, and the use of “organic” motivic structure. Instead, rhythm and texture are emphasized, and harmonic implications provide the impetus for contrapuntal development. Contrasting sections are sometimes juxtaposed without any transitional material. It is as if the profound emotion Mendelssohn was feeling could no longer be expressed in the carefully balanced structures that he had hitherto relied upon. This “requiem” for Fanny became one of Mendelssohn’s own last testaments, as he survived his sister by only a few months.
Felix Mendelssohn has a few unfair strikes against him: prodigiously talented, and from a privileged background, he produced music with an uncommon fluency and a disarming transparency. Adjectives such as “elfin lightness” contribute to the general impression of Mendelssohn as a musical lightweight, a dilettante among serious men. As one of history’s true composer prodigies he produced masterpieces such as the scherzo to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Octet while still in his teens. Despite his obvious talent, music as a profession was discouraged by his family (young Felix received a letter from his banker- Uncle, which declared that “music is neither a profession nor a career – one is no further ahead at the end of one’s life than at the beginning, and what is worse, one knows it”). Professional music-making was definitely out of the question for Fanny, Mendelssohn’s talented sister; their father declared such an outcome “inconceivable.” By his middle teens, however, Mendelssohn’s tremendous aptitude for composing and performing had won his father’s support.
Perhaps as a result of Mendelssohn’s early facility, much of his “mature” work gets short shrift, as if the promise of youth was somehow lost to an indolent adulthood. In fact, Mendelssohn was one of Europe’s busiest musicians in the 1830s and 40s as a virtuoso pianist and prominent conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. The travel schedule of his last few years is astonishing, especially considering the slowness of 19th century modes of transportation: Düsseldorf, London, Berlin, Leipzig, Frankfurt, London again, back to Berlin, Dresden, Aachen, London again, Birmingham, Berlin, Switzerland, Leipzig, Berlin... Hardly the schedule of a man so talented that he remained unburdened by the need for hard work. Schumann, a man who was always quick to credit the talent of others, adored Mendelssohn; upon hearing Mendelssohn’s first Piano trio, Schumann dubbed him the “Mozart of the 19th century”.
Mendelssohn played violin as a child and wrote several early chamber works for strings, including 12 fugues for string quartet (at the age of twelve) and an early, complete string quartet in 1823. Of the six complete and mature string quartets by Mendelssohn, the String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op. 80 is the darkest and most striking. It was composed after the sudden death of Mendelssohn’s beloved sister Fanny, who suffered a stroke at a rehearsal of her brother’s music. For a short time Mendelssohn was unable to write music at all, but by the summer of 1847 he began to compose again, writing this string quartet. Its style is altogether different from his other quartets. Gone are the quasi-Song Without Words slow movements, and the use of “organic” motivic structure. Instead, rhythm and texture are emphasized, and harmonic implications provide the impetus for contrapuntal development. Contrasting sections are sometimes juxtaposed without any transitional material. It is as if the profound emotion Mendelssohn was feeling could no longer be expressed in the carefully balanced structures that he had hitherto relied upon. This “requiem” for Fanny became one of Mendelssohn’s own last testaments, as he survived his sister by only a few months.
Mention of the “Second Viennese School” is often enough to strike dread into the average
concert-goer’s heart. Represented by Arnold Schoenberg and his disciples (most notably
Anton Webern and Alban Berg, whom we shall hear today), and distinguished by
terminology from a presumed “First Viennese School” (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven et al,
though they didn’t know it at the time), the composers of the SVS are famous (notorious?)
for writing music presumed to be unlistenable. Indeed, the wide gulf between composers
and audiences that developed in the 20th century is largely blamed on these three men
and their ideas.
Arnold Schoenberg was the first composer in history to abandon tonalism, the system which had been the framework of all European music that had come before. His influence on his students Webern and Berg was profound; the ripples of this influence carried on through the rest of the century. Considering the relatively small body of music he produced and how rarely it gets performed, it is fair to say that Schoenberg has had a proportionally greater effect on music than any other composer.
The seeds of Schoenberg’s ideas found fertile ground in Webern and Berg. Berg came to Schoenberg essentially unschooled (as Schoenberg had to Zemlinsky years before) and penniless; Schoenberg taught the young man for free. Unlike Webern, whose tendencies to extreme brevity seem tailor-made for atonality, Berg embodied at once both the spirit of modernism and the sensuality of a romantic. Berg’s musical language, despite its atonal construction, seems to constantly hang on the edge of tonal confirmation, giving it an expressive and emotional quality. Later, more ideologically-driven composers (led by Pierre Boulez) tended to dismiss Berg as a compromiser, unable to shake the fetters of tonalism and somehow tainted by sentimentality and a nostalgia for tradition. More recently, Berg’s music has been revealed to be perhaps the most strictly systematic of the three Second-Viennese composers, a masterful amalgam of expression and form.
Berg’s chamber music output rest largely on two works, the String Quartet Op. 3 from 1910, and the work on this program, the Lyric Suite, composed in 1925-26. The form is unconventional: six movements instead of the typical four (Beethoven had broken that convention by the time of his own late quartets), and a tempo scheme in which the odd- numbered movements become progressively faster, and the even-numbered progressively slower and intense. What is now known about the work is that it is also a love-letter: an annotated score of the work given by Berg to Hannah Fuchs-Robettin, the wife of a friend, was discovered in 1976, in which Berg outlines the elements of the work that correspond to the love shared between them. Ciphers are scattered throughout the work, including tone-rows that are anagrams of the lover’s names, and quotes from Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony that are set to words. Capping it all off is the last movement, a wordless setting of Baudelaire’s poem De profundis clamavi, which begins with the words, I beg pity of Thee, the only one I love...
©2010 by Brian Mix, cellist of the Vancouver-based Pacific Rim String Quartet
Arnold Schoenberg was the first composer in history to abandon tonalism, the system which had been the framework of all European music that had come before. His influence on his students Webern and Berg was profound; the ripples of this influence carried on through the rest of the century. Considering the relatively small body of music he produced and how rarely it gets performed, it is fair to say that Schoenberg has had a proportionally greater effect on music than any other composer.
The seeds of Schoenberg’s ideas found fertile ground in Webern and Berg. Berg came to Schoenberg essentially unschooled (as Schoenberg had to Zemlinsky years before) and penniless; Schoenberg taught the young man for free. Unlike Webern, whose tendencies to extreme brevity seem tailor-made for atonality, Berg embodied at once both the spirit of modernism and the sensuality of a romantic. Berg’s musical language, despite its atonal construction, seems to constantly hang on the edge of tonal confirmation, giving it an expressive and emotional quality. Later, more ideologically-driven composers (led by Pierre Boulez) tended to dismiss Berg as a compromiser, unable to shake the fetters of tonalism and somehow tainted by sentimentality and a nostalgia for tradition. More recently, Berg’s music has been revealed to be perhaps the most strictly systematic of the three Second-Viennese composers, a masterful amalgam of expression and form.
Berg’s chamber music output rest largely on two works, the String Quartet Op. 3 from 1910, and the work on this program, the Lyric Suite, composed in 1925-26. The form is unconventional: six movements instead of the typical four (Beethoven had broken that convention by the time of his own late quartets), and a tempo scheme in which the odd- numbered movements become progressively faster, and the even-numbered progressively slower and intense. What is now known about the work is that it is also a love-letter: an annotated score of the work given by Berg to Hannah Fuchs-Robettin, the wife of a friend, was discovered in 1976, in which Berg outlines the elements of the work that correspond to the love shared between them. Ciphers are scattered throughout the work, including tone-rows that are anagrams of the lover’s names, and quotes from Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony that are set to words. Capping it all off is the last movement, a wordless setting of Baudelaire’s poem De profundis clamavi, which begins with the words, I beg pity of Thee, the only one I love...
©2010 by Brian Mix, cellist of the Vancouver-based Pacific Rim String Quartet
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