“This evening’s program begins with works that hint at the possibilities of the string quartet’s four-instrument texture, and ends with a fully mature piece for the ensemble by a fully mature composer. Still the title of this concert is literally true, in a figurative sort of way. Even with the final Haydn quartet, the genre will still be a newborn babe. Nor should this program be viewed as THE origins of the string quartet, although it is certainly a glance at various musical grains that provided the soil for its germination.” ~ Joseph Orchard

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Daniel Stepner and Julie Leven, violin; Jason Fisher, viola; Jacques Lee Woods, cello

Sonata XVI                                                                          Dario Castello (1602-1631)

Chacony                                                                               Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

Sonata a Quattro IV                                                           Antonio Caldara (1670-1736)
Grave – Andante

Quartet in A Major                                                             Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)
Affettuoso – Allegro – Vivace

Quartet Op. 5, No. 1 in C Major                                       Frantisek Xaver Richter   (1709-1789)
Allegro con brio – Poco andante – Rincontro

Intermission

Divertimento in E Flat (Quartet, Op. 0)                         Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809)
Presto – Adagio – Presto

Quartet in G Major, K. 156                                                 Wolfgang Amadée Mozart (1756-1791)
Presto – Adagio – Tempo di Menuetto

Quartet in G Minor, Op. 74, No. 3 (“The Horseman”) Haydn
Allegro – Largo assai – Menuetto – Allegro con brio

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

This evening’s program begins with works that hint at the possibilities of the string quartet’s four-instrument texture, and ends with a fully mature piece for the ensemble by a fully mature composer. Still the title of this concert is literally true, in a figurative sort of way. Even with the final Haydn quartet, the genre will still be a newborn babe. Nor should this program be viewed as THE origins of the string quartet, although it is certainly a glance at various musical grains that provided the soil for its germination.

Little is known of the composer and wind player Dario Castello. He flourished in Venice in the first half of the 17th century, in the midst of a rich culture of chamber music, mostly for winds and brass. In fact, Castello’s writing for strings is less idiomatic than his impressive writing for winds. Thankfully, Castello fully notated his music rather than relying on performers’ abilities to embellish and ornament, giving us a more complete image of the intended sound. His music “embodies the exuberant extroversion” of the early Venetian style, which, Peter Allsop maintains, “is attained through the emphasis on virtuosity and display, its wide vocabulary of…repeated rhythmic patterns, and unerring sense of harmonic motion, while its unexpected changes of mood, rhetorical outbursts, and formal unpredictability of its mosaic-like structures produced a style almost theatrical in its implications.”

Henry Purcell, busy across the channel, worked wonders in a multitude of genres. One musical structure that he mastered particularly well, was that of the chaconne, a triple meter variation form with origins in Spanish dance. This Chacony, Z.730 dates from 1678, written by the 19-year-old composer. Purcell highlights the form’s dance origins.

Antonio Caldara was a string player, one of the finest violoncellists of his day, and began his career as both singer and instrumentalist at San Marco basilica in Venice. By 1700, he had also composed chamber music, religious music, and operas. It was in the last field where his most numerous contributions were made, remaining intensely productive throughout his life. The importance of instrumental music diminished over the course of Caldara’s career, and his farewell to the medium was a set of cello sonatas, written the year before he died.

A number of the overtures to his vocal works were arranged for smaller ensembles, both by him and by others. The present work is an arrangement by Frederick Polnauer of the overture to Caldara’s 1724 Lenten oratorio Morte e sepulture di Cristo, composed for Emperor Charles VI in Vienna, where Caldara was employed as Vice-Kapellmeister. Polnauer primarily realized the work’s implied harmonies, and snipped off the transitional gesture at the end of the overture. The work is in two sections, Grave and Andante, with the latter being more fugal than the former.

Johann Philipp Telemann was a very busy and successful composer who is often marginalized in music history surveys. While his presence is acknowledged, mostly in relationship to Bach, his music rarely gets a hearing. His current reputation does not at all reflect his distinguished and widespread reputation in his own time. It is patently unfair, since he was prolific and consummate musician, but it is the price he pays for being stuck between Vivaldi, J.S. Bach, and Händel on one end, and Couperin, Haydn, and Bach’s sons on the other. And it has been noted that, though his works do not strike us as difficult as Bach’s, we should not underestimate his ability to achieve what he sets out to do.

The phrase “Telemann’s quartets” usually refers to his flute quartets, written for flute, violin, viola, and basso continuo. The presence of the basso continuo, during Telemann’s years, clearly indicate Baroque style. “Basso continuo” would imply a continuo group that always included at least a keyboard instrument, harp, or theorbo and a bass instrument (bass, violoncello, bassoon, etc.). Interestingly, tonight’s piece is written for two violins, viola, and violone, with no mention of continuo in the score. This practice became the norm and its development is important in the rise of the string quartet genre, which, obviously, has no keyboard. The first movement is mostly an introduction: the material is not developed and it ends on a half cadence, hinting a bit at Corelli’s influence. The Allegro starts with a furious affect but suddenly slips into something more pensive. The last movement is a rondo, with the two violins starring in the episodes.

Frantisek Xaver Richter was possibly born in Holleshau, then located in the Habsburg Empire, and now part of the Czech Republic and called Holešov. He had a distinguished career as a musician, excelling as a singer, violinist, composer, conductor, and music theorist. He was particularly renowned as a contrapuntist. His first long-term job was in Mannheim from 1747 to 1768, early in the period when the city’s musical reputation was reaching new heights. He was initially hired as a bass. He did not thrive in this environment, and advancement was difficult.

While he wrote very little, he managed to complete a set of string quartets that was published in London in 1768, and again in Paris, as op. 5, in 1772. These works are considered to be the first string quartets, partly because a contemporary composer, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf seems to have referred to performing these works with two violins, viola, and cello (up to this point in our history this instrumentation has not been specified).

The fact that both Haydn and Mozart have youthful compositions for two violins, viola, and cello points to the establishment of this genre. In their later years, when their professional paths crossed, their string quartets clearly suggest that they were learning from one another, further securing the genre’s place in music history. The histories of these three works, however, are not intertwined.

Haydn’s first quartets were written around the time of his appointment to the court at Eszterháza in 1761, a position he would hold for the rest of his long life. They first appeared in print as Six simphonies ou quatours dialogués pour deux violons, alto viola & basse obligés. composés par Mr. Hayden, compiled by French music publisher Louis-Balthasar de la Chevardière, in 1764-65. This collection was the first music by Haydn to be published anywhere. Two of the six quartets in this collection were not by him, but were flute quartets by Carl Joseph Toeschi. When Chevardière reproduced the series four years later, he replaced the Toeschi works with another Haydn quartet and a symphony reduced to string parts. This group of works was catalogued by Haydn’s pupil, Ignace Pleyel, as Op. 1, though one of the works is not even a string quartet. Johann Julius Hummel, meanwhile, produced an authentic set of six Haydn quartets in Amsterdam in 1765, featuring the five found in the second set mentioned above, and another quartet not catalogued by Pleyel, but which has since gained the opus number, 0. Needless to say, the composer’s intent regarding the order of these works–or the four found in op. 2–was completely neglected and remains a mystery.

Haydn, as you can hear, is quite at home in the quartet idiom, even at this early stage. He intends only to divert. The material of the opening Presto is simple, but we are fascinated by the eloquence and grace of the composer’s treatment of simple ideas. The Adagio has a strong Baroque element: the single affect of an arioso for violin solo with the other instruments limited to accompanimental figures. It is easy to imagine a sympathetic operatic character earnestly delivering his heartfelt reflections. The final Presto is a lively jaunt with a sure conclusion. Two other movements, both minuets, are not being played this evening.

As part of his musical upbringing, Mozart was taken, often with his sister, on several extended tours to different parts of Europe. In fact, the list of cities he visited is astonishing. Primarily, these tours were attempts by Wolfgang’s father Leopold to find work somewhere besides Salzburg, for himself and/or for his son. In late 1772, they got permission to travel to Milan, where they stayed through the winter months. Mozart’s famous Exsultate, jubilate, K.165, was premiered by castrato Venanzio Rauzzini during their visit.

The trip resulted in a number of works, including a set of string quartets, though it is not clear when or where these were actually written down. Analysis of Leopold’s correspondence and the handwriting support the notion that the works date from this time.

These quartets are in three movements, a form common in early symphonies. The Italian influence on this work can be heard in the texture: the clear dominance of the first violin, with the other three instruments working as a unit. Yet it is the activity of the lower instruments, combined with engaging melodic material, that lends vibrancy to the whole. This strategy is in evidence from the very beginning of the opening Presto. The Adagio—Mozart’s second attempt at a middle movement for this work—is full of unexpected pathos. Four of these six quartets have movements in the minor mode, and each of them exploits to the point of eccentricity the contrasts between the major and the minor. In the minuet, there are hints of canonic writing that quickly dissipates.

The final work on the program comes from a set of three quartets written in 1793, two years after the death of Mozart. This was also the year that stood between Haydn’s two visits to London. In 1792, he had returned to his primary employer Prince Anton Ezterhazy after a couple of years in the English capital. While in London, his Opus 64 string quartets had been performed in public, rather than in the more intimate context that was typical for chamber music up to this time. So there is good reason to believe that the next set of string quartets were intended for similar performances. And indeed, there is something about the quartets that points to larger audiences found in concert halls.

The three quartets that make up the Opus 74 set are known as the Apponyi quartets, because they were dedicated to the Count Anton Georg Apponyi, who apparently purchased the dedication, along with the exclusive right (in Vienna) to own a manuscript copy and to perform the quartets until they were published, after one or two years). He was also named as dedicatee on the editions. The agreement did not prevent Haydn from taking the quartets back to London, and performing them there, again in a concert hall.

Joseph Orchard
Joseph Orchard

 

~ Joseph Orchard ©2019

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eglahr@gmail.com

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