THE YING QUARTET

Program Notes

Quartet in E flat, op. 12                                                                                  Felix Mendelssohn

Last time we hosted the Ying Quartet, they treated us to Mendelssohn's Octet, in collaboration with Turtle Island String Quartet.  Tonight they'll be handling the second string quartet written by the German-Jewish child prodigy, his Op. 12 in E flat, written in 1829, two years after his first string quartet, Op. 13.  This makes him all of twenty when he composed tonight's quartet (he was sixteen when he wrote the Octet). We have no doubt as to his being precocious-both as a performer on piano and violin, and as a composer.  And luckily so, for his life was all too short.

Within that short life, the composition of string quartets occupied an important position, both early and late.  The example of Beethoven was always before him, and the place of the string quartet in the Romantic imagination was growing as "an ideal form of absolute instrumental music."  The Quartet op. 12 reflects the closeness of Beethoven's later quartets, which had just been published a year or so earlier.  The slow introduction of the first movement recalls the opening of the "Harp" Quartet, op. 74.  Its grave but beautifully balanced beginning soon gives way to a serene, song-like first theme, and the rest of a classic sonata form ensues.

No characteristic Mendelssohn scherzo is included in op. 12, but the second movement Canzonetta provides several of the same features.  In a sprightly G minor, the staccato themes and later pizzicati remind us of the woodsy mystery of a Midsummer Night's Dream.  A virtuosic double-time central episode puts the players on the hot-seat, and the ABA form, if not the duple meter, follows the formula.  The Andante espressivo-gracious, classically conceived with a romantic melodic expansiveness-continues the vocal qualities heard in the first movement.  The final Molto allegro e vivace is loaded with counterpoint, reminding us of Mendlessohn's passion for studying and performing the music of J.S. Bach.  This C minor movement also recapitulates material from the first movement, and even quotes it at the very end.  Such overt cyclicism speaks to Mendelssohn's contemporary concern for what he called "the ‘organic' interdependence of the whole," reflecting the "mystery that must be in music."

And lastly, but irrelevantly, according to Mendelssohn biographer Larry Todd, "Mendelssohn secretly dedicated op. 12 to the daughter of a Berlin astronomer, Betty Pistor, a singer."

Quartet No. 6                                                                                                              Béla Bartók

We last heard the Sixth Quartet in 1997 as played by the Arianna Quartet, the work's first performance on the Series.  In terms of Hungarian Béla Bartók 's six string quartets-accorded, along with Haydn and Beethoven's, the highest praise in the repertoire-this final work is the most accessible, tuneful, and texturally clear.  The solo viola begins with the "Mesto" ("Sad") theme, a quiet, chromatic microcosm of melody which contains the essence of all that will follow.  Its slow, compound-duple phrases of three plus five plus five bars trace a perfect classical arch to the climax on c double-sharp before falling away to the descending fourth.  The fourth and fifth notes of the piece even foreshadow the "Magyar" folk-music rhythmic device, also called a "Scotch snap."

The first movement is introduced by a motive of ascending fourth followed by descending half-step.  When the fast sonata form's first theme takes off, you will hear this motive expanded into a tune that is recycled many times in different voices and permutations.  The rest of this passionate movement follows the traditional outline of sonata form, with a legitimate second theme in the new key, development and recapitulation, which you may very well hear if you manage to retain the shape of the opening in your mind.  All the emotional connotations of return and release are present, also, so you should still enjoy the experience even if you forget the actual notes of the themes.

The cello plays the "Mesto" theme in preparation for the second movement's March; this time the utterance is accompanied by the rest of the quartet.  The March and the third movement's Burletta are in fairly predictable minuet and trio form. Their contrasting middle sections are pretty obvious:  in the second movement, the cello takes off on a histrionic wail while the viola strums away like a banjo.  The return of the March theme brings whistle tones from the first violin and plenty of fooling around with those short-long Magyar rhythms.

A burlesque is exactly what we hear in the third movement, its irreverent tone in shocking contrast to the depth of pain expressed by its extended "Mesto" introduction led by the first violin.  If you're lost, wait for the Psycho-style down-bows.  That's the Burletta.  I won't spoil all the fascinating string techniques by giving them away ahead of time.  This movement's trio gives the second violin some compensation for not having a "Mesto" feature of its own.  The return of the Burletta theme is done pizzicato, defying expectations with perhaps a nod to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony's scherzo.

The Sixth String Quartet was Bartok's last work before he came to the United States, where poor health and poverty finished him off in 1945 in New York City.  World War II drove him here; as he wrote a couple of months after finishing Quartet No. 6, "You can imagine how very embittered I am.  There can be no point in writing letters full of lamentations-even though I do not approve of the 'keep smiling' attitude."  Satirizing or parodying were what he could do, to provide relief from the emotional despair of his "Mesto" attitude.  But the final movement of this quartet brings us back to the full measure of his sadness, as the recurring theme is pulled into a slow, poignant variation that ends, "not with a bang but with a whimper."

Quartet in A-flat, op. 105                                                                               Antonín Dvořák

Dvořák's last string quartet does not carry his highest string quartet opus number, but that's just because he took a break in the middle of it and wrote string quartet no. 12, op. 106.  Regardless, historians agree that op. 105 represents the great Czech composer's final say in a genre that figured greatly in his imagination (fourteen string quartets altogether) and to which he made contributions comparable to Beethoven's and Bartok's.   Though remembered mostly for large orchestral works in an era of grand romantic gestures, Dvořák excelled in his total chamber music production of thirty pieces, starting in 1861 when he was twenty, and ending with tonight's work, which was finished in 1895, nine years before his death.

This is a concert of slow introductions; our final work is no exception, throwing us initially off track in somber A-flat minor.  But the Allegro soon dispels the gloom in the sunny sonata form proper.  As if to make up for the scherzo we missed in Mendelssohn's op. 12, Dvořák gives us one straight away in the second movement.  Its outer sections challenge Mendelssohn for technical exertion off the bow, but the luscious, sliding harmonies all belong to the late Romantic nationalist.  The trio modulates to D-flat major, with soaring, tender lyricism, eventually in passionate dialogue between the two violins.

The slow movement reverses the characterizations:  sweetness on the outside and a piquant filling.  The simple F major themes pile up from voice to voice, amassing a transcendent effect, until the more unsettled and dissonant core arrives.  The finale is the longest movement of a long work and has been described as "an expression of pure joy."  Perhaps the composer was relieved to be back in Bohemia for good, after his stressful visit to the United States, where he was expected to fix the nascent American classical music infrastructure and tell the Americans how to create an American musical tradition.  But I have this irrational sense that he was hanging on to this final movement of this final quartet, somehow knowing he would not pass this way again.

Jeanne Belfy