STRING QUARTET IN D MINOR, Op 76 No 2 (‘Fifths’)

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809)

Allegro

Andante o più tosto Allegretto

Menuetto: allegro ma non troppo

Finale: vivace assai

By 1797, when the six quartets Op 76 came to be written, Haydnhad behind him not only a lifetime’s experience in the medium,but also an acquaintance with the concert world of London,encouraging, to a yet greater extent, his penchant for arrestingrhythms and sonorities, as well as the unexpected in general.

This quartet is nicknamed ‘the Fifths’, after the falling interval ofthe principal motif which is immediately heard at the outset of the piece on the first violin, above the gently throbbing of the otherinstruments. These two things contribute to the ‘seamless’ natureof the quite short exposition, using this ‘throbbing’ as part of themajor-key melody, and the following fifths as part of the means of connecting one idea to another. A simple signpost to the‘development’ proper is the upside-down treatment of the twofeatures, with the fifth rising on the cello and the ‘throbbing’ nowabove. The terseness of the recapitulation gives Haydn room for atailpiece after a general pause.

The rather indecisive tempo direction of the ‘slow’ movementpoints to its ambiguous nature. The emotional weight of the firstmovement is lightened by the major key and initial pizzicatoaccompaniment of the symmetrical and ‘popular’ feel of the themenow propounded by the first violin. But this is no sooner

completed than a more forceful episode comes in, with morethan a tinge of the minor key again. This leads back into

a variation of the first theme, but this seeminglysimple design is extended, through two pauses,into a tailpiece combining simple harmonies withintricate passage-work.

The main body of the minuet isremarkable for being entirely in canon:that is to say, the pair of violins,playing in octaves, are followed at

one bar’s interval by the viola andcello (also in octaves) playing thesame tune, a sparse and powerfuldevice. The trio entirely offsets thisin a manner unnecessary to detail.

Haydn now has the option, havingreturned to his D minor for the minuet,

of starting his Finale in the major. But no;although the main subject is in a very lively and

sometimes syncopated style, it is still in the minor mode

INTERVAL OF 20 MINUTES

Tickets for the KUNGSBACKA PIANO TRIO at the SherwellCentre on Saturday 29 April will be on sale during the interval.

QUARTET NO 2

Béla Bartók (1881 – 1945)

Moderato

Allegro molto capriccioso

Lento

The six string quartets of Béla Bartók occupy a central position inthe classical repertoire of the twentieth century. Not only are they a milestone in the evolution of the quartet literature but, alongwith those by Haydn and Beethoven, they provide an overviewof their composer’s output at all the main junctures of his career.

Although he had written several quartets in his adolescence,Bartók was twenty-seven before he embarked on his firstacknowledged work in the medium, the Quartet No 1, in 1909. The length of time that he worked on the Second Quartet (1915-17)is partly explained by this enforced period of isolation, partly bythe overriding need to fashion a musical language in which the‘art’ and ‘folk’ music aspects of his creativity were allowed to findtheir natural equilibrium. There are again three movements, thistime following the slow-fast-slow format which frequently foundfavour in the twentieth century.

The opening Moderato grows from a searching theme on violawhich, after a modally-inflected idea has provided contrast,propels the impassioned central climax. A varied and intensifiedrecall of the main material leads into the pensively ambivalentclose. If this movement marks the limit of Bartók’s late-romanticleanings, the scherzo that follows clearly points the way forward.The motor-like rhythms of its main theme and the yearning triosection breathe the spirit of peasant culture, while the scurryingcoda anticipates the angular musical expression to come later. Itmay best be described as a series of capricious Magyar-inspireddances, written in a vein of which the Allegro Barbaro is socharacteristic an example. In all such movements an almost savage,rhythmic drive sweeps everything before it. The finale returns tothe inwardness of hitherto, its terse initial motif spawning a freely-evolving theme, which together define the harmonic and melodiccontent of the Lento as a whole. The closing bars are not so muchdefeatist as fatalistic – as though the composer’s solitude hadafforded him a measure of self-recognition.

Programme Notes by Philip R Buttall

until the second themes emerge, here marked by a passage for violinsalone, and, after a pause, by a passage in double stops for the firstviolin alone. As far as the recapitulation (its first part at least), themusic is in or near the basic minor key, but after a pause the maintheme slyly returns, at last in the major, and adds another tailpieceusing triplets which have not been heard before.

STRING QUARTET IN E FLAT MAJOR, K 428

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)

Allegro non troppo

Andante con moto

Menuetto: Allegro

Allegro vivace

Mozart completed some twenty-six string quartets, the first in 1770, atthe age of fourteen, and the last in June 1790, the year before his death.The Quartet in E flat major, K 428, was written in Vienna in thesummer of 1783, and is the fourth of the set dedicated in 1785 toHaydn. These Haydn quartets of Mozart, written under the influence ofthe older composer, had their own reciprocal influence on Haydn’sown later quartets. When they appeared in print later that year, Mozartwrote a dedicatory preface of which this is an extract:

A father who had decided to send out his sons into the great world thoughtit was his duty to entrust them to the protection and guidance of a man whowas very celebrated at the time and who, moreover, happened to be his bestfriend. In like manner I send my six sons to you, most celebrated and verydear friend. They are, indeed, the fruit of a long and laborious study; pleasethen, receive them kindly and be to them a father, guide and friend!

In April the following year, Mozart mentions Zeno Franz Menzel as acharming violinist and one who has proved an excellent sight-reader inthe composer’s quartets, probably the earliest three of the Haydn set, K387, K 421 and K 428, the last of which preceded, in order of composition,the third quartet, K 458 in B flat, ‘The Hunt’.

The E flat Quartet opens with a motif in octaves, followed by a subtlecombination of elements that form a movement of deceptive simplicity.The A flat slow movement, in compound metre, is in tripartite form, itsopening figure suggesting the material developed in the central section.The original key is restored in the Minuet, more of a scherzo than adance, framing a B flat Trio that eventually allows each instrument ashare of the running melody. The surprises of the last movement againshow Mozart’s understanding of Haydn, in a form of composition thatis taxing to the composer in its transparency of texture, and wherenothing can be hidden.

Programme Note from Making Music, the National Federation of Music Societies

BRONTE STRING QUARTET

The Bronte String Quartet has been working together full-time sinceSeptember 2001, and is widely regarded as one of the most excitingquartets of its generation. Much in demand for concerts, the playershave performed at such venues as the Wigmore Hall, the QueenElizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room, St David’s Hall and Snape MaltingsConcert Hall. They have also played at festivals including Cheltenham,Edinburgh, Hampstead and Highgate, Chelsea and Brighton, and haveappeared live on BBC Radio 3, Austrian National Radio, and Italiantelevision.

Winners of the 2nd prize in the Eighth International String QuartetCompetition in Cremona, they also won the 2003 Royal OverseasLeague Ensemble Prize and Miller Trophy. Other prizes include theprincipal award for the 2003 Tunnell Trust and the Siemens Prize forthe best performance of a Viennese Classical work at the InternationaleSommer Akademie in Austria in 2002. They were Lord and LadyLurgan Junior Fellows at the Royal College of Music from 2002–4, andheld the Bulldog Scholarship at Trinity College of Music from 2004–5.They have also been Resident String Quartet at Aldeburgh as part ofthe Britten-Pears Young Artists Programme.

While most of their busy schedule is spent performing the core stringquartet repertoire in traditional classical music venues, the BronteQuartet strongly believes in the importance of widening both theaudience and the repertoire of string quartet concerts. For theCheltenham Festival they commissioned a work by DobrinkaTabakova. They have given premieres of works by Cecilia McDowalland Kathryn Butler, and have taken master-classes for compositionstudents at the Royal College of Music, Trinity College of Music and

Exeter University. They were members of Live Music Now! for threeyears and regularly give workshops and concerts in schools andcommunity centres.

The Bronte Quartet also enjoys collaborating with other musicians,and has performed octets with the Vellinger Quartet and quintets withcellist Guy Johnston, violist James Boyd, and pianists Tom Poster,Martin Cousin and Stephen De Pledge. With Stephen De Pledge theyrecorded the Mozart piano quintets (arrangements by the composer

of three concertos), which will be released on the Quartz label.

The Bronte Quartet has recently been chosen as one of thethirteen selected quartets at pre-competition stage,

to proceed to the next round of the Tenth LondonInternational String Quartet Competition, whichtakes place early next month. We wish them every

success in the competition!

PlymouthChamber

Music

7.30pm Saturday 25 March 2006 at theUniversity of Plymouth Sherwell Centre

Sponsored by Hyde Park Financial Advisers

CONCERTS IN THE 2005/2006 SERIES

All at the Sherwell Centre at 7.30pm

CHAMBER ENSEMBLE OF THE KING’S CONSORTSaturday 1 October 2005

BRODSKY STRING QUARTET

Saturday 29 October 2005

REBECCA JONES (Viola)ABIGAIL RICHARDS (Piano)

Saturday 12 November 2005

MAGGINI STRING QUARTET

Saturday 26 November 2005

ENDELLION STRING QUARTETDAVID WALTER (Oboe) & DAVID ADAMS (Viola)

Saturday 28 January 2006

CONFIGURE 8 (Wind & String Octet)

Saturday 18 February 2006

CALLINO STRING QUARTET

Saturday 4 March 2006

BRONTE STRING QUARTET

Saturday 25 March 2006

KUNGSBACKA PIANO TRIO

Saturday 29 April 2006

Concert details can be found on the website:www.plyclassical.co.uk

BRONTE STRINGQUARTET

Sara Trickey (Violin)Katharine Gorsuch Johns (Violin)Jon Thorne (Viola)Daisy Gathorne-Hardy (Cello)