Arnold Steinhardt, first violin of the internationally acclaimed Guarneri String Quartet, invites music listeners to the world of the string quartet repertoire and ensemble. Journey with him and interpretive analysis instructor Mia Chung through the history and features of quartet music, colored by stories of legendary quartets and insights from the stage. This season's Curtis courses are sponsored by Linda Richardson in loving memory of her husband, Dr. Paul Richardson.
Absolutely Dvorak
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En provenance du cours de Curtis Institute of Music
The World of the String Quartet
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À partir de la leçon
The Internationalists, Part 1: Smetana, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, and Bartok
Beyond German-speaking countries, composers adapted the string quartet to their own cultures—some more so than others. National traits, as well as personal stories, emerge in the heartfelt works of Smetana ("From My Life"), Dvořák (Op. 105), Tchaikovsky (Op. 22), Borodin (No. 2), and Bartók (No. 5). How does this very individual music convey its national identity?
Rencontrer les enseignants
Arnold SteinhardtPerformance Faculty
Dr. Mia ChungInstructor of Interpretive Analysis
Musical Studies
Antonin Dvorak
apparently felt a deep connection to the string quartet form.
He wrote fourteen of them, spanning his entire
adult life. Most well-known among them, of course, is his
American Quartet. Composed in 1893 during his three-year visit to America,
he said of it and other of his American works, "I think that
the influence of this country
(I mean the folk songs that are Negro Indian, Irish,
et cetera) is to be seen, and that the New World Symphony and all
other works of mine written in America differ very much from
my early works, as much in color
as in character..." The American was not Dvorak's
only string quartet at least in part written in America.
He began working on Opus 105 in A-flat Major,
what would turn out to be his very last quartet,
while still in New York City and finished it
after returning to his native
Czechoslovakia. Dvorak complained of being homesick
at the end of the American stay. Perhaps
it’s my overworked imagination, but I sense this in the brooding introduction
to the quartet. First the cello, then viola,
second violin, and finally first violin each enter plaintively in what could
easily have been preparation for a dark and somber
work. But no! Those same
melancholy groups of notes from each instrument turn suddenly
bright and exuberant as the movement gets underway.
Perhaps Dvorak had a sudden lifting of heart on the ship
bringing him back to Prague,
for the entire quartet is mainly one of cheer
and good spirits, and only rarely touched by sadness.
It's tempting in the face of such high-spirited music
to overlook Dvorak's
great craft in fashioning each movement. And as far as
the inspiration that suffuses every detail
of this quartet, I wonder which side of the Atlantic Ocean
it came from. Was it from the Negro, Indian, and Irish music
Dvorak spoke so highly of?
Or once back in his native land,
did he once again embrace its folk idiom
for good purpose? Certainly in the second movement, the Scherzo,
its lively and syncopated rhythms seem related to the Czech
stomping dance known as the Furiant, a folk element often used by
Dvorak. The third movement--slow,
lyrical, and songful, is based loosely on the quartet's opening material
and bookends a restless and agitated middle section that
only briefly shows a darker side
of Dvorak's creativity. The last movement,
the longest of the four, also draws on the quartet's opening introduction.
Will this finally be the somber and and anguished music
that the beginning seemed to promise? Again,
Dvorak is merely playing with us, for the music then
bursts into exuberant polka-like dance, lyrical melody,
and even a touch of humor before rushing to its joyful
end. Dvorak's Opus 105 was one of the very
first quartets our Guarneri String Quartet performed and recorded.
A performer's task is to make music sound convincing and effortless.
I would say that the greater the music,
the harder the task is. In the case
of this sublime string quartet, we had serious work to do,
for example, in picking
the just-right tempo for a movement, and in capturing
the essence of every nuance. But there was another element
of difficulty that a listener might not pick up on--
the choice of key. Dvorak must have had something specific
in mind when he decided on
the uncommon key of A Flat Major for this quartet.
In a composer's mind every key has its own color, its own
atmosphere. But why A Flat Major, a key that uses no open strings, and therefore
makes the task of playing in tune that much more difficult?
Dvorak was himself a string player
and must have known that he would be giving the Guarneri and every
other string quartet extra hours of rehearsal
struggling to master the key.
If we meet in afterlife, I plan to confront
Dvorak and simply ask,
“Sir, why A-flat?" In listening to Dvorak's music,
I often have to think of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Dvorak's music in no way resembles Mozart’s, of course,
except in one way that I can hear.
Each draws from a seemingly effortless and endless spring
of creativity. Whether Dvorak's source of inspiration
is from America or Czechoslovakia makes little difference in
the end. His music touches the heart and raises the spirit.
What more can you ask of a composer?
[MUSIC]
Antonin Dvorak,
a next-generation composer of the Czech national tradition
was torn by the competing influences
of Viennese classical orthodoxy and his Czech
nationalism. Like Schubert, whom he greatly respected,
Dvorak had a very natural sense for chamber music
and that of the absolute kind, that is music of an
abstract nature without any ties to an explicit program
or story. He wrote his last two string quartets together,
one within the other. He started writing his String Quartet in
A-flat major, Opus 105 in New York
just before returning home to Prague
after his three-year appointment as director of the
National Conservatory of Music. Part way into the first movement,
Dvorak traveled home and he began to write
a new string quartet, his Opus 106.
After finishing this quartet, he resumed work
on his Opus 105, finishing both in 1895. Opus 105 is thus his last string quartet,
the last of 14. It's a work that captures Dvorak's
joy of returning home. As one would expect,
the references to his Czech culture are pervasive
and the tone of the work is impassioned and lively.
This celebratory picture, if you will, is not without significance.
Opus 105 captures a snapshot
of Dvorak's lifelong effort to integrate the
musical spirit of his homeland into a well-crafted
classical work. Earlier on, Dvorak’s compositional excellence as a composer of
absolute music drew the attention of many
including Johannes Brahms and the influential Viennese music critic,
Eduard Hanslick.
Brahms functioned almost as an agent for Dvorak's success
by connecting his music to Joachim,
the great violinist, conductor and composer. Both Brahms
and Hanslick had encouraged Dvorak to move
to Vienna. Hanslick once wrote,
"Your art requires a wider horizon,
a German environment, a bigger,
non-Czech public." Though flattered by this support
and enthusiasm, Dvorak was keenly aware of the condescension
that German-speaking folks showed towards the Czech people.
He'd also watched his countrymen suffer at the hands
the ruling Hapsburgs. Despite the tension posed by these cultural perspectives,
Dvorak was most successful in fully reconciling
his Czech voice with the Austro-Germanic
classical tradition as seen in this work. Take, for example, the first movement
in sonata form, where one can expect the most
thematic substance to be present.
The great quartet composers
of the classical era were good at many things,
among them the ability to develop
themes, and this happens largely
in the development section of the work.
Think of the expansive, nearly symphonic
outer movements of Brahms' Opus 51, number one quartet in C Minor,
where the thematic ideas are developed extensively.
Dvorak, a colleague and admirer of Brahms,
demonstrates his masterful ability to develop ideas
in the first movement of Opus 105 by taking
kernels of the first and the second
themes which are rhythmically distinct and
intensively playing them off of each other, even transforming them
to create a new thematic texture
before arriving at the recapitulation.
Now, the Czech side
of Dvorak is distinctly present in the scherzo
or second movement, as well as the finale.
In both cases, he draws upon
dance for inspiration. In the finale,
we hear a polka, another Bohemian kind of dance
in two-four time. And in the second movement
we hear music based on a furiant, which is a
rapid and impassioned Bohemian dance in two-four or three-four time,
with accents that shift frequently.
Let's listen to the furiant
from the second movement.
[MUSIC]
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