Nessessary Music: String Quartet

Showing posts with label String Quartet. Show all posts

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Brazilian Quartets by Villa-Lobos and Nepomuceno (1968)

Liner Notes:

Two of Brazil's most important composers are the little-known pioneer Alberto Nepomuceno and the world-famous Heitor Villa-Lobos. Both were admirers of each other's work, and both participated in a common effort to endow the music of their country with its own identity and autonomy. These two major influences on the classical music of Brazil are represented here by works that, although separated by more than half a century in time, still reflect the composers' mutual intent to create a music distinctively Brazilian in idiom and character.

Alberto Nepomuceno was born in Fortaleza on July 6, 1864, and died in Rio de Janeiro on October 16, 1920. From his father, a school teacher in Pernambuco, he learned the rudiments of music and then, at sixteen, was sent to Italy to study at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. During his five-year sojourn in Europe, he also studied in Berlin and Paris. Returning to Rio, he was appointed director of the Institute Nacional de Música, a post he held for almost fifteen years. In addition to many instrumental and vocal pieces, Nepomuceno also composed operas, a Symphony in G Minor, and a Piano Trio in F-Sharp Minor.

His Quartet No. 3 in D Minor, subtitled "The Brazilian," was written in Berlin when he was twenty-seven. However, throughout the composer's life, the work remained unknown and unperformed. It was not until 1956 that the quartet, together with Quartets Nos. 2 and 4, came to the attention of musicologists, for then it was discovered in the Biblioteca da Escola Nacional de Música (The National Music School Library) in Rio by Sergio Alvim Corrêa. The quartet received its first hearing on a radio program entitled "Music and Musicians of Brazil" on September 11, 1960. Two years later, it was performed at a concert in São Paulo.

Sergio Alvim Corrêa has described this work as "the first characteristic Brazilian work to introduce, a well-defined folk theme." This occurs in the Andante movement, which utilizes a motif based on the Brazilian folk song "Tutú Marambá." The quartet as a whole, however, is strongly European influenced, but it does demonstrate Nepomuceno's warmly lyrical style and pioneer, though limited, use of national material.

Heitor Villa-Lobos is not only Brazil's foremost composer, but is also one of the outstanding musicians of the Western hemisphere. He was born on March 5, 1887, in Rio de Janeiro and died in that city on November 17, 1959. Early in his career, he developed a deep interest in native Brazilian songs and dances and made several expeditions into the interior of his country to collect such music. During his lifetime, he traveled widely throughout Europe and America, but he never neglected his beloved Brazilian folk idioms. His lack of formal musical training forced him to evolve his own techniques and to experiment with many methods of composition. Because he first earned his living as a cellist, that instrument figures prominently in many of his works, as here in his Quartet No. 17 and, most notably, in the famous Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 for Soprano and Eight Cellos.

The Quartet No. 17, composed in 1957, is the last in a monumental series of quartets initiated by Villa-Lobos in 1915. A late work, it was first performed in Washington, D.C., by the Budapest Quartet on October 16, 1959, just a few weeks before the composer's death. It is a work of typical Villa-Lobos color and power, and some of its opening phrases recall the introduction to his early symphonic poem "Uirapurú," composed in 1917.

About the performers:

The Brazilian String Quartet, the official quartet of the National School of Music, is made up of violinists Santino Parpinelli and Jaques Nirenberg, violist Henrique Nirenberg, and cellist Eugen Ranevsky. The Quartet has appeared extensively throughout the Americas and in Europe and the Orient. After an appearance in Washing¬ton, D.C., the Daily News there reported that "the splendid Quartet from the University of Brazil was overpowering."

Because of its outstanding contribution to the cause of Brazilian music, the Quartet has been decorated with the Medal of Honor and Merit by the Music School of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and also recently received the "Ordem do Rio Branco" (White River Order) from the President of the Republic of Brazil.

Track List:

Villa-Lobos: Quartet No. 17 - I Allegro non troppo
Villa-Lobos: Quartet No. 17 - II Lento
Villa-Lobos: Quartet No. 17 - III Scherzo
Villa-Lobos: Quartet No. 17 - IV Allegro vivace
Nepomuceno: Quartet No. 3 - I Allegro non troppo
Nepomuceno: Quartet No. 3 - II Andante sostenuto
Nepomuceno: Quartet No. 3 - III Intermezzo—Allegretto
Nepomuceno: Quartet No. 3 - IV Molto allegro

Download Link: Enjoy the Music!

Other Music by Heitor Villa-Lobos:

Other Music by Alberto Nepomuceno:

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Paganini Quartet - String Quartets by Ginastera and Lajtha (1956)

Alberto Ginastera has long been one of my favorite 20th Century composers and I especially like his string quartets. I had never heard any music by Lajtha until listening to this recording. I digitized this recording from a vinyl copy in my campus' library collection. Read the liner notes below for more info on this recording.

Alberto Evaristo Ginastera, the Argentine composer whose First String Quartet is recorded here for the first time, is gradually gaining popular recognition in the United States. He was born in Buenos Aires on April 11, 1916, and has been making music since early childhood. He studied at the National Conservatory of Music and Drama in his native city, and after graduating with highest honors became Professor of Composition there—a position he still occupies. In 1937 composer-conductor Juan Jose Castro conducted the symphonic suite of Ginastera's first major work, a ballet based on an Indian legend, Panambí. In 1940, the ballet itself was performed and promptly won the Ballet Award of the Colon Theatre, after Ginastera had won the 1938 Music Prize of the Argentine National Commission of Culture for his Cantos del Tucumán (for voice, flute, violin, harp and 2 drums).

In 1941 came another ballet, Estancia, commissioned by the American Ballet Caravan. In 1942 he was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship and ultimately visited the United States in 1946-47, when many of his works were performed by the NBC Symphony, the League of Composers in New York, and the Pan American Union. He then wrote works for various chamber groups, for harp, voice, piano, organ, chorus and orchestra. Some of these were heard at Music Festivals here and abroad. His commissioned Piano Sonata created a stir at the ISCM Pittsburgh Festival in 1952 and was selected for performance at ISCM's Festival in Oslo in 1953. Pampeana No. 3, commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra, was given its premiere late in 1954, winning a warm response.Among Ginastera's other principal works are: Salmo CL, Sinfonía elegíaca, Obertura para "El Fausto Criollo," Variaciones Concertantes for chamber orchestra, Sinfonía Porteña, Concierto A rgentino for piano and orchestra, Hieremiae prophetae lainentationes for a cappella chorus, Dúo for flute and oboe, Pampeana No. I for violin and piano, Pampeana No. 2 for 'cello and piano, Danzas Argentinas for piano, Malambo for piano, and an assortment of songs, children's pieces and incidental music for several Argentine films.

Ginastera's style is clear, his technique most orderly, his utterance agreeable. He makes an attempt at reconciling national and international traits, for his inspiration clearly emanates from the rich folklore of his native land. The elemental rhythms and melodies of the Argentine plains are a part of him, and he uses them with originality and refinement—even if only as thematic background. Ginastera's music is always rich in substance, in the field of the contemporary without any loss of feeling, and imbued with an intensely personal element. The composer manifests a high degree of craftsmanship and speaks authoritatively and entertainingly.

His First String Quartet, composed in 1948, won the Asociación Wagneriana de Buenos Aires Prize, and in 1951 was selected for performance at the 25th International Society for Contemporary Music Festival in Frankfurt, where it was considered outstanding. Its rhythms and melodic elements are those of the pampas, and Ginastera was praised for his "spontaneous and excellent musicality." It is a fresh work—brilliant, forceful and definitely of virtuoso proportions, for the composer writes with genuine exuberance and much originality, demanding of the players all the special ricks of the trade, from harmonics to col legno, from glissando to spiccato. There is definite direction, nevertheless, and the work not only fascinates but satisfies both players and listeners.

The first of the usual four movements, Allegro violento ed agitato, is in sonata form with two principal subjects, preceded by a brief introduction, whose elements generate the first subject and the coda.

The second movement, Vivacissimo, is in scherzo form, divided in three parts, with contrasting rhythms in an atmosphere of changing sonorities. The admirable third movement, Calmo e poetico, corresponds to the ternary lied: the first violin presents the subject against the background of guitar strings. A 'cello cadenza introduces the second section, whose subject is built on the first one. The recapitulation of the first section is shortened, and the movement ends with the chord with which it began. The fourth movement, Allegramente rustico, is an elaboration of the rondo form with two alternating subjects. The refrain's characteristic is the perfect fifth played spiccato (spring how). With each repetition the refrain is heard with stronger sonority.

Like Bartók and Kodály, László Lajtha is a distinguished Hungarian composer, conductor, writer, and authority on folk music. Born in Budapest on June 30, 1892, Lajtha studied at the Academy of Music there. At the same time he read law and obtained his degree in 1913. In 1910 he became associated with the folk music movement of Bartók and Kodály, and joined their collecting expeditions, which Ile has continued ever since. Extensive sojourns in Leipzig, Geneva and Paris during 1910-13 greatly enlarged his horizon. On his return he joined the staff of the Ethnographical Department of the Hungarian National Museum. In 1919 he became Professor of Corn-position and Chamber Music, later also of Aesthetics and Theory of Magyar Music at the National Conservatory. After World War II he was made honorary director, and remained until 1949 when the Institute ceased to function.

Despite his devoted studies, research, teaching and travels—he had his greatest success in Paris—he found time for composing prolifically. Other activities were added. In 1926 he became choirmaster at the Budapest Calvinist Church. Together with Bartók he participated in the first international Congress of Folk Art in Prague (1928), which, incidentally, antedates the organization of the International Folk Music Council by some twenty years. In 1929 he won the Coolidge Prize for his String Quartet No. 3, and a year later he was appointed music expert of the Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, a League of Nations organization. In 1941 he organized a chamber orchestra, which he conducted until 1944. In 1945 he became director of music of the Hungarian Broadcasting Service. In 1947 he was largely responsible for setting up the International Folk Music Council, and while in London he finished his Symphony No. 3 and Variations for Orchestra. The Hungarian State Kossuth Prize was given to him in 1951 in recognition of his work with Hungarian folk music, for he had completed the investigations in areas largely left untouched by Bartók and Kodály, resulting in a rich harvest, not yet fully evaluated. In 1952 he assumed another professorship, supervising musical folklore research at the Budapest Academy of Music.

As a teacher he has influenced many—and particularly towards French and Latin culture in general, to which his own attachment is readily discernible in the quality of his musical inspiration and expression. Thus he has proved an exception among his Hungarian contemporaries who lean towards the Germanic.

Stylistically, Lajtha had an early idiom which reflected the experimental tendencies of our century: Lisztian virtuosity with Debussy influences and harmonic complexities. A later change of direction stressed contrapuntal aspects, which also led to a pre-occupation with chamber combinations. Typical of this period are his third and fourth String Quartets. Then came another shift: the return to chordal structure of diatonic purity. Lajtha re-discovered the far from exhausted potentialities of the common chord—and as ever, melody prevailed ! And finally the return to a simplified harmonic basis, resulting in a more euphonious texture. With his superior technical equipment, his musical grammar has become condensed and cogent, and his music is a beautiful balance between technique and inspiration.

Much of the vitality of Lajtha's music stems from a rhythmic drive, derived from folk music impulses, for Lajtha absorbed this element more readily than Bartók or Kodály. But the Magyar influence is less obvious, chiefly because Lajtha is more interested in the melodic shape and form of traditional materials, regardless of their peculiarly national characteristics. This, of course, permits a considerable stylistic freedom of treatment, yet the Magyar spirit and flavor permeate all—from his Italianized writing to the dance and contrapuntal compositions modelled on lassical French prototypes. It also allows for the use of popular tunes, often assuming allusive quotation, often subjectivized with elaborate figuration. Here he shows an affinity with native 19th century romanticism, which was rejected by the very generation to which Lajtha himself belongs ! The Quartet No. 7, composed in 1950, is a good example of the distillate of Lajtha’s craft and invention: it is lively and full of good humor, clear and direct. The writing is brilliant and effective, very much Hungarian in character, with themes that are elusively related. The late Olin Downes called it a "skillfully written work, with quite a hit of paprika for seasoning." Perhaps not a very profound work, it is nevertheless refreshingly artful, both in idiom and material. The slow movement, in particular, possesses a hauntingly "legendary atmosphere."—Boris Erich Nelson

About the Paganini Quartet...

The famed Paganini Quartet takes its name from the instruments it uses —all owned at one time by Niccolo Pagan and all made by Stradivarius over 200 years ago. The Quartet was formed in 1945 and gave its first concerts in the United States in the follow g year. Since then the Quartet has played countless concerts in this country, in Canada, and in Europe, being acclaimed everywhere as one of the finest string quartets before the public today.

Individually, the members of the Quartet have distinguished backgrounds. Henri Temianka, born in Scotland of Polish parents, is widely known as soloist and chamber music performer as well as through his commentaries, lectures and articles. Messrs. Rosseels and Foidart, both born in Belgium, were prominent quartet players in Europe and taught at the Royal Academy in Brussels. Lucien Laporte, also a native Belgian, has for a long time been identified with the musical life of this country as soloist, chamber music performer and teacher. All the members of the Quartet now make their homes in California.

Track List:

QUARTET No. 1 Alberto Ginastera

Allegro violento ed agitato
Vivacissimo
Calmo e poetico
Allegramente rustico

QUARTET No. 7, Op. 49 Laszlo Lajtha

Prestissimo
Molto tranquillo
Menuet (Quasi allegro, grazioso)
Molto vivace

Download Link: Enjoy the Music!

Other recordings:

Monday, April 5, 2010

Composers Quartet - Quartets by Seeger, Perle and Babbitt (1973)

This is one of my favorite string quartet recordings. I have always liked 20th century classical music, and the string quartet has been a favorite format. This recording has long been out of print and I finally got it digitized so I can listen to it without having to pull out the record. I hope you will enjoy it just as much. Following are the liner notes.

The development of 20th-century music has been marked by a constant search for new means of musical organization to replace those that had been associated with the tonal system. The collapse of this system shortly after the turn of the century created a sort of vacuum characterized by the absence of a common musical language, leaving composers with the task of fashioning new languages based on new musical assumptions. Although the contributions of various European composers to the development of such languages have been well documented, it is only in recent years that there has been a full recognition of the important role played by American composers in this process. Probably the clearest symptom of this newborn awareness has been the belated interest in the music of Charles Ives, who in works written shortly after the turn of the century anticipated many of the compositional procedures which were later to occupy a central position in 20th-century musical thought. But there are other Americans, of more recent generations, who resemble Ives in their use of techniques later developed by Europeans to much greater public acclaim. The three composers on the present recording and the three string quartets by which they are here represented lend ample evidence to this claim.

Although the name of Ruth Crawford Seeger is still known mainly only to those particularly interested in modern music, she was one of the most innovative composers of the first half of this century. Born in Ohio in 1901, she wrote a series of strikingly original compositions in the late 1920s and early 1930s, only then to give up composition almost entirely, devoting her musical activities primarily to teaching piano and editing collections of folk songs in collaboration with her husband, the well-known musicologist Charles Seeger. (This interest in folk songs undoubtedly had its influence on her stepson Pete Seeger.)

Her early musical studies were completed at the American Conservatory in Chicago, and her first compositions were conservative in nature. Later, however, she developed a highly personal compositional style, which reached its greatest fruition in the String Quartet of 1931 (written while the composer was living in Berlin on a Guggenheim Fellowship), a work which—particularly in its last two movements—employs techniques that attained general currency only after the Second World War.

The opening movement, in moderate tempo, is characterized by an uncompromisingly contrapuntal texture in which each instrument has clearly differentiated material. Formally it is almost cadenza-like in conception and consists of one uninterrupted span, held together by intervallic and rhythmic correspondences and a gradual increasing of intensity to a climax near its end. The second movement is similarly contrapuntal, but here the instruments work in close cooperation to form what often sounds like one principal line made up of various subordinate ones. Faster in tempo and more motivic than the first (the intervallic and rhythmic associations of the previous movement are here placed in an explicitly imitative context), it has the quality of a scherzo. In the third movement the process of instrumental consolidation is carried a step further: the four instruments are absorbed into "clusters" whose individual parts are differentiated only by their dynamic patterns. The latter are staggered in such a way that each of the four voices alternately emerges from and recedes into the total sound mass. The form of the movement is defined by a gradual expansion of register from the low, restricted opening to a widely-spaced chord in triple stops, after which there is a return to the low register of the beginning.

From a technical standpoint (particularly in regard to its overall rhythmic organization), the last movement is perhaps the most interesting of all; it is certainly the most prophetic of later musical developments. It consists of two contrapuntal lines, one assigned to the first violin and the other, in octaves, to the remaining three instruments, which are muted. Each line undergoes its own rhythmic development: the first begins with a one-note unit which is gradually increased one note at a time until a twenty-note unit is reached at the mid-point in the movement, while the second begins with a twenty-note unit which is similarly reduced to one note at the middle. This entire process is then played backwards (transposed a step higher) so that the two lines end with the same rhythmic units with which they began. While the first line is free in its use of pitches and durations, the second moves in steady eighth notes (except for the rests which separate the units) and is strictly organized according to a ten-note pitch series that is developed by a process of rotation.

Milton Babbitt is one of the most important and influential of contemporary American composers, yet his compositions are surprisingly little known. Born in Philadelphia in 1916, Babbitt's early influences were Schoenberg and Webern. In the 1940s he began to extend the serial principle beyond the organization of pitches to such dimensions as durations and dynamics; his Three Compositions for Piano, written in 1947, is the earliest work by any composer to serialize non-pitch elements. (In Babbitt's compositions, however—unlike those of later European serialists—pitch relationships retain their traditional dominance in the hierarchy of musical structure.)

The String Quartet No. 2, composed in 1952, provides an excellent example of Babbitt's individual manner of treating the twelve-tone system. Here the set, or row, is an all-interval series (i.e., the intervals formed by adjacent pitches comprise all possible intervals within' the chromatic scale), and the form of the piece is determined by the gradual unfolding of these intervals. Thus the opening section presents an "exposition" of first the opening interval of the set (a minor third) and then the second interval (major third), each of which serves to generate its own "derived" set—a secondary row created through the serial manipulation of a portion of the principal row. There is then a "developmental" section based on a three-note motive comprising both these intervals, which also generates a derived set. There then follows a second large section, again consisting of an expository part (presenting the third interval) and a developmental part (based on a three-note motive comprising the second and third intervals). This procedure is continued until all intervals in the first half of the series have been introduced, at which point the first six notes are stated for the first time as a complete linear unit, and are used as the basis for the last section of the first half of the piece. The second half consists of a repetition of this entire process, only it is now the second half of the series which is gradually exposed. Finally there is a closing section in which the complete twelve-tone row appears unambiguously for the first time, representing the culmination of the formal growth of the quartet as a whole.

If this rather oversimplified description sounds somewhat forbidding, it should be emphasized that the aural effect of the quartet is quite transparent. Since each section is characterized by its own unique intervallic content, the sectional organization is easily perceivable. Further, Babbitt differentiates the expository parts from the developmental ones by emphasizing the former through octave doublings; and in the final section, the complete set is presented by all four instruments playing in unison, and is thereby distinguished from all other material in the piece. Finally, there are also textural, rhythmic, and dynamic associations which link together corresponding sections of the large two-part design.

George Perle was born in 1915 and, like Babbitt, became interested as early as 1939 in transforming the twelve-tone system to suit his own compositional ends. There the similarity ends, however, for Perle chose an entirely different direction for his extension of serialism. Perle's interest in the row has been not so much in its linear implications as in the totality of relationships existing among all of the twelve tones, including their vertical or "harmonic" associations. He has evolved an elaborate system for generating twelve-tone sets that are characterized by recurring intervallic patterns, and which can be arranged in groups so as to create closely related chordal successions. In the String Quartet No. 5, written in 1960 and revised in 1967 (with the addition of a new finale), the interval of the third plays a particularly important role—for instance, each movement ends with an identical chord placed a minor third lower at each appearance. Perle's frequent combination of these thirds into chordal units gives much of the work an almost triadic quality. Yet the underlying organization of these chords has nothing to do with the diatonic tonal system but is completely consistent with the composer's unique "twelve-tone modal" system. The result is a piece which despite superficial associations with older music, is entirely original in the

generation and application of its materials. Another innovative technique with an important formal function in the quartet is "metrical modulation," a procedure by which tempos are altered by applying new metrical groupings to previously established durations. Although this technique has attracted general interest only in recent years, Perle has himself employed it consistently throughout his compositional career.

The first of the three movements of the quartet has much in common with traditional sonata form. It begins with a gently swaying theme which is expanded throughout the opening section. After a pause, the second theme (already hinted at in the first section) appears in the first violin. Both themes are then developed and recapitulated in modified form. The second movement, which is in a brisk tempo, is quite short and develops out of the initial eighth-note motive played pizzicato in the cello and the sixteenth-note violin figure which accompanies it. (This movement, as well as the third, contains several references to the first movement.) The last movement, the most complex and dramatic of the three, is sectional in layout and features more abrupt contrasts than the first two. Like the first, the external form results from the repetition and variation of diversified melodic ideas, but here these are placed in a considerably more continuous developmental framework.

Both Babbitt and Perle are active as teachers, the former at Princeton University and the latter at City University of New York (Queens College). They have also both written extensively about 20th-century compositional techniques. Those wishing more technical background on these two composers are referred particularly to Mr. Perle's book, Serial Composition and Atonality (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, third edition, 1972). ROBERT P. MORGAN

Credits:

Matthew Raimondi, violin
Anahid Ajemian, violin
Jean Dupouy, viola
Michael Rudiakov, cello

Track List:

RUTH CRAWFORD SEEGER (1901-1953)
STRING QUARTET (1931) (9:47)

Rubato assai
Leggiero
Andante
Allegro possibile

GEORGE PERLE (b. 1915)

STRING QUARTET NO. 5 (1960, rev. 1967) (13:52)
in three movements

1st Movement
2nd Movement
3rd Movement

MILTON BABBITT (b. 1916)

STRING QUARTET No. 2 (1952) (13:00)

in one movement