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Introduction
The term chamber music was introduced in the seventeenth century by the theorist Marco Scacchi. For him,
chamber music was one of three contexts in which music was ordinarily found; these were musica ecclesiastica
(church music), musica theatralis (theater music), and musica cubicularis (chamber music). These categories had
nothing to do with the number of players, the number and sequence of movements, or the formal design of
individual movements. Indeed, details of the actual compositions could not be deduced on the basis of Scacchi's
three classifications. The designation chamber music indicated only that a particular composition was intended to
be performed in a private residence rather than in a church or in a theater. Many works that were initially
performed in private residences hardly seem to be chamber music to the present-day music lover: The
Brandenburg Concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach, for example, and Beethoven's Fourth Symphony were first
heard in aristocratic homes.

There are several reasons why the Brandenburg Concertos might seem to us poor examples of chamber music.
Since they are concertos, we expect a contrast between the ensemble of soloists and the orchestral tutti. Also, it is
quite likely that the harpsichord player would have led the performance from the keyboard. These factors are at
odds with our contemporary notion of chamber music, which typically presumes a work requiring more than a
single performer, but having only one player per part. In addition, most chamber music is performed without a
conductor.

With the demise of western European aristocracy during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, courtly
ensembles were replaced by domestic gatherings, often of amateur musicians. Domestic ensembles Page 2
→tended to be smaller and to play music of only moderate difficulty. It was during this time that the principal
genres of chamber music became standardized: the sonata for keyboard and one or more melody instruments, the
string quartet, and the piano trio. Music of this sort became a highly marketable commodity. Music publishing
shops opened throughout Europe, and magazines and other periodicals commonly published multi-movement
chamber pieces in installments. Soon, however, musicians in duos, trios, and quartets who performed together on
a regular basis became specialists in the repertoire for their particular group. Composers—who were often
members of such ensembles—responded by writing music of a more demanding nature. Franz Joseph Haydn and
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, for example, wrote some of their finest chamber works for ensembles of which they
were members. In so doing, they gradually pushed chamber music repertoire out of the reach of typical amateur
groups.

Nineteenth-century Europe and America witnessed dramatic changes in demographics. In general, rural
populations declined, and urban populations grew. Two extreme cases are seen in the instances of London and
New York City. The population of London jumped from one million in 1800 to 6.7 million at the end of the
century. For most of the nineteenth century, it was the most populous city in the world. In New York City, the
population jumped from 49, 487 in 1790 to 2,581,541 in 1890.1 In order to accommodate these larger populations,
buildings intended for music performance changed dramatically during that century. Whereas the typical concert
hall of the eighteenth century accommodated an audience of approximately 550 people, the average nineteenth-
century hall was designed for an audience of approximately 2,400.2 These gargantuan halls were suited to the
high-profile genres of the day, such as operas, concertos, oratorios, and symphonies, but they were hardly
congenial to the intimacy of chamber music. Many of the Romantic century's leading composers cared little—if at
all—for composing chamber music. Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner, and Richard
Strauss are just a few of the composers who might be cited as examples. Those composers who did write chamber
music were often fascinated with music history—like Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann—or, believed that
they were upholding standards that had been established by the giants of the late eighteenth century. Working in
Vienna, where the music critic Eduard Hanslick guarded the city's musical heritage, Johannes Brahms felt a
special responsibility to uphold the chamber-music tradition that virtually originated there during the Classical era.

With the transformation of tonality that took place at the close of the Page 3 →nineteenth century and the
beginning of the twentieth, chamber music ensembles provided the ideal venue for experimentation with new and
often difficult idioms. Many of these experimental styles rejected traditional harmony, melody, and meter. At the
same time, timbre, register, and rhythm assumed greater importance; consequently, composers turned to ad hoc
chamber ensembles, often with unusual instrumentation. Debussy, for example, thoroughly reconstituted the
traditional trio for piano, violin, and cello with one consisting of flute, viola, and harp. Chamber ensembles thus
became a testing ground for progressive ideas and novel sonorities. Contemporary chamber ensembles are
remarkable equally for the types of music they play and for the fact that they are not chamber music ensembles at
all—at least, not in the sense that Scacchi had imagined when he coined the term. Instead, they are concert artists
who specialize in the performance of recent repertoire. Ensembles such as Earplay, the Kronos Quartet, and the
Verdehr Trio are just a few outstanding examples of groups that specialize in contemporary chamber music.

The instrumentations of chamber ensembles became still more diverse with the advent of academic programs in
ethnomusicology. Traditional instruments of China, Japan, Korea, and many other nations began to appear with
Western instruments in chamber ensembles. In some cases, too, Asian composers write for Western instruments in
the manner of traditional Asian instruments. Composers such as Chou Wen-chung, Chen Yi, and Zhou Long have
made great accomplishments in combining Asian artistic concepts with Western musical materials. The “non-
Western” curiosities of the 1950s have now yielded to masterpieces that draw their musical materials from global
resources.

In the pages that follow, the turning points briefly outlined here will be considered in greater detail. This study
examines the personalities involved with the creation, dissemination, and performance of chamber music as well
as representative compositions, considered both as autonomous musical structures and as mirrors of the societies
in which they came into being.

Musical examples occasionally call attention to distinctive features of a particular piece, but since music students
and professionals will necessarily procure complete scores and recordings of those works that strike their fancy,
examples are concise. Access to scores has become much easier owing to recent electronic sources, such as the
following:

Alexander Street Press Classical Scores Library (http://alexanderstreet.com/)

International Music Score Project (http://imslp.org/)

ScorSer (http://www.scorser.com/)

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Digital Scores from the Eastman School of Music (https://urresearch.rochester.edu

/viewInstitutionalCollection.actionPcollectionId=63)

Variations Project, University of Indiana (http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/scores/)

Readers should also consult the University of Michigan Press home page for listings of related links.

Listening resources available on line have also burgeoned during the past several years, and now Classical.com
(www.classical.com), the Naxos Music Library (http://www.naxos.com/), and other online sources put repertoire
at our disposal with ease. Indeed, one can even find many works in live performances on YouTube
(http://www.youtube.com/).

I have kept detailed, theoretical discussions to a minimum, preferring instead to focus on the cultural, aesthetic,
and philosophical circumstances that led composers to their particular artistic visions. The Table of Compositions
According to Ensemble Size will be useful primarily for practical musicians looking for repertoire for actual
performance situations. Throughout the text, pitches are given as capital letters. Pitches in the octave of middle C
are indicated simply as C, D, E, and so forth. Octaves above the middle-C octave are designated with capital
letters and superscript numbers (e.g., C1, C2, etc.); octaves below with subscripts (e.g., C1, C2, etc.).
Page 5 →

ONE
The Nature of Early Chamber Music
Haut AND Bas INSTRUMENTS
Music for domestic performance—chamber music—is the focus of this book. Aristocratic homes of medieval
Europe often had rather expansive music rooms, but these spaces were generally smaller than a church or theater.
Less volume was required to fill them with sounds, and ensembles tended to be smaller.

Early musical instruments were classified either as haut (i.e., high-volume) or bas (low-volume). The high-volume
instruments included the trumpet, trombone, shawm, buisine, and so forth. The low-volume instruments included
the viol, lute, bandora, chitarrone, and the violin family (which came into common use only in the early
seventeenth century), as well as the more subtle wind instruments, such as the recorder and transverse flute.

INSTRUMENTATION IN THE MUSIC OF THE LATE MEDIEVAL ERA AND THE

RENAISSANCE
Idiomatic instrumental and vocal styles came into being during the early Baroque. Older repertoire was
constructed according to the laws of voice-leading without regard to instrumentation. This abstract approach to
composition led to a singular style that was used both for voices and for instruments. Compositions from this era
can often be found in multiple versions, some with texts, others without. Almost any late medieval or Renaissance
score could be converted into a piece of instrumental chamber music simply Page 6 →by performing it on bas
instruments with suitable ranges for the particular musical lines.

EARLY MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Instruments of the medieval and Renaissance fell out of use during the Classic and Romantic eras, but instrument
builders and early music ensembles have stimulated interest in these antiques. Some of the most important early
instruments are described in the following list.1

Early Musical Instruments

bandora Plucked stringed instrument, similar in construction to the lute but tuned differently, having six or seven
courses.

buisine Brass instrument constructed like the ancient tuba, but with a long slim pipe curved round and terminating
in a funnel-shaped bell.

chitarrone See lute.

cittern Small stringed instrument having a pear shape, flat back, six courses and frets; the cittern was usually
strung with wire and played with a plectrum.

clavichord Keyboard instrument in which the string was activated by a tangent attached directly to the key; tone
was subtle in the extreme, but the instrument was capable of producing graduated dynamics.

cornetto Curved woodwind instrument with finger holes front and back; conical bore; played with a mouthpiece
similar to that of a trumpet, but made of wood and more shallow; available in consort; bass instrument of this sort
was curved into the shape of an S to provide access to the finger holes and was therefore called a “serpent.”

crumhorn Family of capped double-reed instruments; cylindrical bore; finger holes front and back; shaped like
the letter J; literally “bent horn.”

curtel Family of double-reed instruments with two parallel conical bores joined at the bottom. The bore often
terminated in a small bell. The bass version of the instrument was the ancestor of the modern bassoon. The name
is a corruption of the word “curtail.”

dulcian See curtel.

dulcimer Stringed instrument with flat soundboard; strings usually activated by striking with hand-held hammers.

harpsichord Keyboard instrument often with multiple sets of strings; the strings were activated by a plectrum that
plucked the strings when the key was depressed

lute Stringed instrument with rounded back and shaped like a halved pear; Page 7 →often with eleven strings in
six courses; flat fingerboard with gut frets; smaller instruments of this type called mandola; related to modern
mandolin; construction varied widely, especially as regards length of fingerboard as related to body. The
chitarrone, a large bass lute, was especially popular during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a continuo
instrument.

nackers Type of kettledrum usually used in pairs and struck with mallets.

pandora See bandora.

panpipes Wind instrument consisting of a number of tuned pipes of different sizes bound together with glue;
pipes are typically stopped at one end and blown across the top; also known as “vertical flutes.”

psaltry Similar in construction to dulcimer, but strings were activated by plucking with the fingers or with a
plectrum.

racket Family of double-reed instruments in which the tube is continuously doubled back on itself in order to
form nine verticals alternately joined at top and bottom with U-shaped crooks to yield one continuous column of
air. This design was devised to keep the instrument compact.

recorder Most popular type of fipple flute (i.e., end-blown); cylindrical bore; finger holes front and back;
available in full consort.

regal A small pipe organ constructed with reed pipes exclusively.

sackbut Ancestor of the modern trombone; distinctive features included a U-shaped slide for changing pitch and a
flared bell.

shawm Family of double-reed instrument; ancestor of the modern oboe; finger holes front and back; reed was
held directly in the player's lips.

slide trumpet Early brass instrument with the characteristics of a trumpet but without valves or pistons; some
flexibility in pitches played was achieved by equipping the instrument with a slide; design proved impractical,
consequently the instrument was not widely used.

sordune Family of instruments constructed, like the dulcian, with the tube doubled back on itself. It differed from
the dulcian in that it had a cylindrical rather than a conical bore. This feature gave it a somewhat more gentle,
mellow sound.

vihuela Stringed instrument with flat front and back; ancestor of modern guitar; flat fingerboard with frets; often
as “vihuela da mano”
viol Family of stringed instrument; flat back; fretted fingerboard; typically had six strings; bowed with an
underhanded grip (as many present-day double bass players can be seen using). The bow was shaped as a gentle
curve, and the tension on the bow hairs was regulated by the player's finger.

virginal English or Italian type of harpsichord constructed in a rectangular case with strings running at right
angles to the keys; activated by a plectrum, like the harpsichord.

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OPTIONAL SCORING
With the advent of music publishing in the early sixteenth century, optional scoring became increasingly desirable
since it resulted in a wider market for printed compositions. Ottaviano de Petrucci issued the Odhecaton, the
earliest example of printed music, in 1501. Although the majority of these compositions were originally vocal
pieces, the absence of complete texts suggests that they may have been performed by instrumental ensembles.2

Similarly confusing cases exist in manuscript sources of the period. In an early sixteenth-century manuscript
prepared for King Henry VIII, twenty-four instrumental consort pieces and six puzzle canons are sandwiched
among numerous texted part songs.3 An even dozen of the consorts were written by Henry himself; one each came
from the pens of William Cornish and Thomas Farthing. The remaining ten are of unknown authorship. The
pieces are about equally divided into works in three and four voices. Most pieces are in duple meter, but triple
meter also appears. Imitation appears in most of the consorts.

In published works of the period, optional scoring is often invited by the composer and/or publisher. Paul
Hofhaimer (1459-1537), who was active at the court of the Emperor Maximilian, issued his Harmoniœ poeticœ in
the year 1539. On the title page, we read: “Harmoniœ poeticœ…most excellently suited for voices as well as for
instruments.” Similar flexibility is apparent in Orlando Gibbons's First Set of Madrigals and Mottets of 5 Parts:
Apt for Viols and Voyces (London, 1612).4 In both cases, voices and instruments might have been mixed
depending upon the resources at hand. In his collection of dance music published in 1599, Anthony Holborne (ca.
1560-1602) indicates that the volume contains “Pavans, galliards, almains and other short æirs both grave, and
light, in five parts for viols, violins, or other musicall winde instruments.” Optional scoring was common until the
late Baroque era. The autograph manuscript of the “Benedictus” of Bach's B-minor Mass, for example, does not
specify the obbligato instrument.

THE BROKEN AND FULL CONSORTS

Instrumental ensembles of the Renaissance are frequently described with the words “broken” or “full.” A broken
consort combined instruments of different types.5 Conversely, the full consort used instruments from a single
family. Broken consorts were used more often than full consorts during the Renaissance.

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The instrumentation of a broken consort was not standardized, but one of the more common combinations
included flute, lute, treble viol, cittern, bass viol, and bandora, the ensemble specified by Thomas Morley (ca.
1557-1602) in his two volumes of Consort Lessons (1599, 1611).

The repertoire for full consort was limited almost exclusively to stringed instruments, especially the viol.6 From
the late sixteenth century to the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the viol family enjoyed great prestige and
popularity, particularly in England. The polyphonic chamber music for full viol consort was often written in six
parts and required two treble viols, two mean (i.e., middle-range) viols, and two bass viols. A set of six constituted
a “chest of viols” because the instruments were stored in “chests” specifically designed as protective cases.

PAIRED DANCES AND SUITES

Both broken and full consorts were used throughout the Renaissance for playing dance music. Dances varied from
one country to the next, but in most countries it was common to find them in pairs: the first in a slow duple meter,
the second in a faster triple or compound meter. In France and England, the most common pair of dances was the
pavane and the galliard. In Italy the passamezzo and the saltarello were comparable. In Germany the Tanz and
Proportz were a common pairing.

Dance music was nothing new in the sixteenth century, but its availability in printed editions was. Publishers like
Tylman Susato (ca. 1500-ca. 1564) in Antwerp, Pierre Attaingnant (ca. 1494-1552) in Paris, Jacques Moderne (ca.
1495-ca. 1562) in Lyons, and Thomas Morley (1557-1602) in London were at the forefront of this enterprise, and
their publications preserve hundreds of samples from this repertoire.

During the seventeenth century, newer dances were added to the conventional pairs. The particular dances added
depended upon regional trends and preferences. In France, for example, the minuet became very popular; or, in
English scores, one might find the hornpipe. Dances assembled into groups are commonly called “suites.”

CHAMBER MUSIC BASED ON IMITATIVE POLYPHONY: THE Canzona

Some of the most fascinating music written during the late Renaissance and the early Baroque achieves its
structural unity by treating a particular motif in imitation. The imitation may be free or strict. From the closing
Page 10 →decades of the fifteenth century until the beginning of the eighteenth, the most important genre using
free imitation was the canzona.

The word canzona means “song,” but most canzonas are instrumental pieces. The explanation for this disparity
actually reveals the origin and typical stylistic features of the canzona. During the high Renaissance period,
Josquin des Pres (ca. 1440-1521), Pierre de la Rue (ca. 1460-1518), Loyset Compére (ca. 1445-1518), and other
Flemish composers wrote secular part songs called chansons, which employed motivic imitation in some sections
but free counterpoint or homophony in others.

The chanson had no predetermined form, and the music of its various sections was freely invented to accord with
the poetry being set. These secular part songs quickly became popular in Italy, sometimes with their French texts,
but more often without them. The Italians referred to a piece of this sort as a canzona francese, or “French song.”

In many cases, these “songs” were performed on instruments rather than sung. Italian composers soon began
writing canzonas that had no texts at all; instead, these canzonas simply reproduced the characteristic interplay of
voices, the lively rhythms, and the contrasting sections that characterized the French chanson.7

Florentio Maschera (ca. 1540-ca. 1584) and his teacher, Claudio Merulo (1533-1604), played an important role in
the history of the canzona. Merulo's organ canzonas served as the compositional models for Maschera, but it was
Maschera who first published a set of canzonas written especially for an instrumental ensemble. His volume
entitled Libro primo de canzoni da sonare a quattro voce (First book of canzonas to be played in four parts) was
the first of hundreds that used the designation da sonare to specify instrumental performance.8

The Italian word sonare means “to sound” in the sense of producing sound from an instrument. In Renaissance
and Baroque scores, the word is used in contrast to cantare, “to sing”; hence, instrumental music carried the
instruction da sonare, and vocal music was designated as repertoire da cantare. Eventually the cumbersome
designation canzona da sonare was shortened to the more familiar word sonata.

The hundreds of composers who contributed to the canzona repertoire cannot be discussed here, but many
fascinating examples of the genre can be found in collections like the Canzoni alla Francese a quattro voci per
sonare of Adriano Banchieri (1568-1634), the Canzoni da sonare a quattro, et otto voci of Florio Canale (ca.
1550-ca. 1603), Il primo libro delle canzoni a quattro voci per sonare con ogni sorte de stromenti musicali by
Tarquinio Merula (ca. 1594-1665), and the Canzoni a 3: doi violini, e violone, col suo basso continuo of Page 11
→Maurizio Cazzati (ca. 1620-1666). Cazzati's collection was later reprinted as Canzoni da sonare a tre.9
These canzonas reveal a growing distinction between vocal and instrumental music, which led ultimately to
idiomatic styles of writing suited to specific instruments and voice types. This stylistic refinement was one of the
major achievements of the Baroque era.

In their musical settings, many of the chanson texts were fitted to a dactylic rhythm in duple meter. This rhythm
and meter came to be a characteristic feature of the earliest instrumental canzonas. The eleven canzonas contained
in Banchieri's 1596 collection, for example, are uniformly in common meter. Canzona subjects are energetic, often
beginning with a dactylic rhythm.

Duple meter was predominant in the earliest canzonas, but later examples of the genre frequently introduced
contrasting sections in triple or compound meter. Very often, sections were set off one from another by dynamic
contrasts or by varied tempo indications. Imitative sections tended to be in lively tempos, whereas passages in free
counterpoint or homophony were at a slower pace. Precise instrumentation was seldom indicated in the scores of
canzonas da sonar.

Formal designs within canzonas were as varied and numerous as were the composers. In Banchieri's canzonas,
two or three sections may be related thematically and call for repeats. Other pieces consist of continuous
manipulation of a single motif. Ordinarily, a single voice states the primary motif, which then appears at regular
intervals in the imitating voices. Contrapuntal sections in which all voices commence simultaneously are rare. A
distinctive feature of Banchieri's collection is his use of titles for each canzona.

In most canzonas, little continuity is apparent from one section to the next. Within the context of the original,
vocal chansons, the text held the compositions together. As instrumental music, the free-form canzona was less
effective. Composers experimented with various techniques in order to achieve coherence. Some canzonas
conclude with a return to the opening thematic material. Others involve a systematic alternation between imitative
and homophonic sections. The most ingenious structures appear in a type of canzona known as the variation
canzona, in which imitative portions are built on thematic variants of the opening motif.

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CHAMBER MUSIC BASED ON IMITATIVE POLYPHONY: Ricercar-TYPE PIECES

The high Renaissance motet exerted a powerful impact on contemporaneous instrumental music based on strict
counterpoint. In Italy, the terms ricercar or capriccio were commonly used to designate motet-like instrumental
pieces. In Spain, tiento or fantasia was the more typical designation. In England, the customary labels for such
pieces were fancy, fantasia, or fantasy. The word ricercar is derived from cercare: to search. Exactly what the
search (or “research,” in this case) entailed differed at various times in the history of the genre. The earliest pieces
bearing the label ricercar were intended to test the tuning of strings and the placement of the frets on the lute.
Ricercari of this sort can be found mainly in the early sixteenth-century works of composers like Francesco
Spinacino and Joan Ambrosio Dalza, whose ricercari appear in Petrucci's 1507 publication of the Intabolatura de
lauto. In its more common application, the term ricercar designates a piece exploring the possibilities of
elaborating a subject or series of subjects. The typical ricercar subject is “abstract in character and well fitted for
its function of displaying contrapuntal artifice.”10

A “monothematic” ricercar is based on one single motif, whereas the “polythematic” ricercar employs a variety of
subjects. In either case, the composer will present a musical motif, called the dux, or “lead voice,” which will then
be imitated in the remaining voices. When an imitating voice enters at a tonal level other than the tonic, it is called
an answer, or comes. The answer is described either as a “real” or a “tonal” answer. If the intervallic content of the
dux is reproduced exactly in a strict transposition, then the answer is “real.” If any of the intervals of the dux is
changed in the comes, the answer is described as “tonal.” A special type of answer that is sometimes found in
music of the seventeenth century is the so-called inganno, a permutation of the original subject obtained by using
its solmization syllables rather than its intervallic content.11

Imitative works of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries typically alternate between the tonic and dominant
levels or, perhaps, the tonic and subdominant. This regular alternation of tonal planes was by no means
standardized in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Variable also is the length of time between the initial
statement of the motif and its successive imitations. Some composers, like the Venetian Gioseffe Zarlino
(1517-1590), advocated widely spaced entries of the principal motif in order to permit the greatest possible
diversity and imagination in the construction of the musical subject. Other composers, like Thomas Morley Page
13 →(ca. 1557-1602), preferred short themes in close imitations so that performers and listeners could more easily
follow the subjects.

Spacings between entries of the subject can also have a dramatic effect. As a piece nears its conclusion, the
composer may shorten the gap between the subject and its answer so that entries are stacked one upon the other in
rapid succession. This device is called stretto—the Italian word for “pressure” or “stress.”

The leading masters of the Italian ricercar were Adriano Willaert and Girolamo Frescobaldi. Willaert's ricercari
appeared in two mid-sixteenth-century collections of Fantasie et recerchari. He generally preferred the
polythematic ricercar. Frescobaldi wrote his ricercari a bit later. They are landmarks of the early Baroque style,
especially since the subjects are highly expressive, and the harmonies are often daringly chromatic.

The seventeenth-century capriccio was a special type of ricercar that displayed some unpredictable behavior—for
example, extensive chromaticism, or irregular resolutions of dissonances.

Most Italian composers who wrote ricercar-type pieces were church organists, and the repertoire that they
produced were pieces da chiesa (for church) rather than da camera (for chamber), but in England imitative
polyphony made its way into the domestic music-making of amateurs. The ensemble most often used to this music
was a full consort of viols.

Viol playing had become popular in England by the close of the sixteenth century. Publishers cultivated the
amateur viol player by issuing instruction books on “how to play the viol.” Christopher Simpson's The Division-
Violist appeared in London in 1659. Thomas Mace's compendium, Musick's Monument, was published there in
1676. Musick's Monument contains three sections. The last is entitled “The Generous Viol, in Its Rightest Use.”

The popularity of the viol fantasia evoked scores from the pens of leading composers like William Byrd, Giovanni
Coprario (ca. 1575-1626), Alfonso Ferrabosco (ca. 1575-1628), Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), John Jenkins
(1592-1678), and William Lawes (1602-1645). Their combined works form a genuine treasure trove of chamber
music for strings.

Owing to the growing market for chamber compositions, music publishing Page 14 →flourished in sixteenth- and
seventeenth-century England. William Byrd, who had been granted a patent for music publishing in 1575 by
Queen Elizabeth, was a key figure in the dissemination of this repertoire. The three collections of fantasies by
Orlando Gibbons are also important to the history of music publishing since one of these collections, the Fantasies
of Three Parts (London, n.d.), was “cut in copper.” Copper-plate engraving—a fast, accurate, and relatively cheap
way of producing scores—became the most common way to print music during the eighteenth century. At the
time of Gibbons's publication, though, it was a process that, as the title page states, was “not heretofore extant.”

THE In Nomine
A type of piece cultivated exclusively by English composers was the In nomine. These were secular, instrumental
consort pieces; however, they all used the Sarum rite plainchant for the text Gloria tibi Trinitas œqualis in one
way or another.

The pieces were called In nomine because the plainchant melody was known to composers of the era in the
context of John Taverner's Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas, which states the full melody in the mean voice at the
appearance of the words in nomine Domine at the close of the Sanctus.12
Many composers contributed settings of the In nomine tune: John Bull (ca. 1562-1628), William Byrd, Alfonso
Ferrabosco, Orlando Gibbons, Robert Parsons (ca. 1530-1570), Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623), and many others.
Despite their churchly origin, some pieces based on the In nomine are humorous. Christopher Tye (1505-1573),
for instance, composed a setting (known as “In nominee Crye”) in which cries of London street vendors hawking
their goods are woven around the plainchant. The In nomine remained an important genre of English instrumental
music until the time of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), who contributed a number of outstanding examples.

The early-music revival has resulted in the use of this tune in several contemporary works. Peter Maxwell Davies
(b. 1934) has written two elegant orchestral fantasies based on it, and between 1963 and 1965, he composed seven
settings for chamber ensembles.

THE EARLY BAROQUE SONATA

To a musician of the Baroque era, the term sonata designated a piece to be “sounded” (suonare) rather than sung
(cantare). The most important sonata Page 15 →literature of the Baroque era consists of the so-called solo and
trio sonatas. These terms are confusing. The “solo” sonata often required two or three players: the “solo” violinist
and the accompanying basso continuo group consisting of the bass line instrument (cello possibly with violone)
and the chord-playing instrument (a harpsichord, lute, harp, or guitar in secular works; or, an organ in church
works).13 For a “trio” sonata, three or four players were needed: two equal, treble instruments (usually violins),
and the basso continuo group.

THE SONATA da Chiesa

Depending upon whether the pieces were intended as service music for church or music for amusement at home,
the sonatas were described as being either da chiesa (for church) or da camera (for chamber). The da chiesa
sonata typically has three or more movements in contrasting tempos.14 Tempos are indicated by Italian words
such as grave (i.e., serious), allegro (i.e., happy), vivace (i.e., lively) and so forth. These words indicated moods,
but they in no way had the specificity of metronome markings. Sonatas often had a succession of four movements
in the tempos slow-fast-slow-fast; but this pattern was not universal. Even within the four-movement plan,
Archangelo Corelli (1653-1713) and his contemporaries frequently introduced contrasting subsections within
movements. Sonatas da chiesa often contain movements in contrapuntal texture as well as occasional movements
in closely related keys. Since organ was available in Italian churches at the time, it was generally part of the
continuo group in church sonatas; however, other chord-playing instruments may have been added.

Starting in the mid-sixteenth century, the art of violin building flourished in Italy. The trade was usually passed
from fathers to sons in families. Some of the most important families were the Amati, Guarneri, Stradivari, and
Guadagnini. Many of these builders were active in the tiny north-Italian town of Cremona, which is about twenty-
five miles southwest of Brescia Page 16 →and seventy-five miles northwest of Bologna. These two music centers
kept the Cremonese string builders productive during the heyday of the Baroque era.15

Perhaps the most important composer of Baroque string sonatas was Corelli, whose orderly publications became
for historians the paradigms of the genre. Corelli was highly regarded during his own lifetime and became a model
for many other Baroque composers, including John Ravenscroft (d. ca. 1708), Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762),
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). In contrast to most musicians,
Corelli died a rich man with considerable cash assets as well as a fine collection of paintings.

Little is known about Corelli's early life and training. We do know that between 1666 and 1670, he was active in
Bologna. By 1675, he had settled in Rome, where he found willing benefactors in Queen Christiana of Sweden
and Cardinal Pamphili. From 1690 until his death, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni was also among Corelli's patrons.

Corelli's output consisted of six sets of instrumental organized as table 1 shows.

Corelli's music reflects the state of the art of Italian instrumental music at the turn of the century. Functional
harmony, major and minor mode, sequences and suspensions, and respect for the role of the leading tone had been
firmly established in practice, though theoretical explanation of these structures did not appear until Jean-Philippe
Rameau's Traité de l'harmonie (1722).16

Corelli's melodies often use thematic transformations like those we find in the variation canzona repertoire. For
instance, the principal themes of the first and second Allegro movements in the Sonata in G minor, Op. 1, No. 10,
are closely related in their pitch content; however, whereas the former theme appears in common time, it is
transformed in the second Allegro by its use within 6/8 meter.

Corelli's melodies tend to be derived from persistent rhythmic figures and pitch configurations (such as
sequences). Melodies exhibiting this continuous Page 17 →forward motion are said to employ Fortspinnung,
which may be translated as “spinning forth.” In Corelli's trio sonatas, neither the first violin nor the second violin
can be said to dominate. Voice crossings are very common, and the music appearing in the first violin part is
frequently transferred later to the second violin and vice versa. Key signatures of pieces in the minor mode
typically omit that status of scale degree six since the theoretical model for Corelli and his contemporaries was
Dorian mode rather than our diatonic natural minor with lowered third, sixth, and seventh scale degrees.

THE SONATA da Camera

The sonata da camera consisted of a suite of dances. The names of the dances were sufficient to suggest
appropriate tempos; thus, there was no need for Italian tempo words. Harpsichord, lute, guitar, or harp was
normally used in the continuo group. Little emphasis was placed on scholarly, contrapuntal writing. The core
dances of the typical sonata da camera, along with their characteristic meters and tempos, are shown in table 2.

These dances are in binary form. Each half of the structure (e.g., I-V: || V-I: || in major, or i-III: || III-i: || in minor)
is to be repeated with improvised ornamentation.

With the exception of the sarabanda, these dances normally began with an anacrusis, or “pickup” beat. This
feature was inherited from functional dances in which the foot was lifted to begin the choreography; however,
most sonatas da camera were clearly not intended for practical use on the dance floor.

Sonatas of the sort that we have described began to appear in the early seventeenth century in the works of
Salomone Rossi (1570-ca. 1630), Giovanni Paolo Cima (fl. 1610-1622), and Giovanni Battista Buonamente (late
1500s-1642). They spread throughout Europe, and important contributions Page 18 →to the repertoire were made
in England by Henry Purcell (1659-1695), in France by Francois Couperin (1668-1733), and in Germany by J. S.
Bach (1685-1750). They remained in vogue until the late eighteenth-century works of Francesco Maria Veracini
(1698-1768). Sonatas of the late Baroque display an astounding mixture of elements including polyphony, double
stops, bariolage, scordatura (i.e., irregular tunings), and special types of bowing.

THE CONCERTO da Camera

Early chamber concertos were distinguished from church concertos because, like the sonatas da camera, the
chamber concertos were based upon a series of dances. Three types of concertos were cultivated during the
Baroque era: the solo concerto, the concerto grosso, and the ripieno concerto.

The solo concerto featured a single soloist who was alternately accompanied by or pitted against the orchestral
tutti. The solo concerto provided opportunities for the featured player to extemporize brilliant passage work. As
the emphasis on virtuosic playing grew, the solo concerto became correspondingly popular. The concerto grosso
utilized several soloists, most often, the two violins and cello of the trio sonata. Additional players were added on
each voice of the trio-sonata texture to create contrasting groups: the concertino of soloists, and the ripieno of
multiple players. The ripieno concerto achieved variety and contrast by juxtaposing the various orchestral choirs
of strings, woodwinds, and brass instruments. Instruments could also be grouped according to dynamic level or by
range.
THE KEYBOARD PART IN BAROQUE SONATAS
Baroque sonatas contain either of two distinctly different types of keyboard. In the continuo sonata, the keyboard
part is a figured bass. The keyboard player would have filled in harmonies based upon the intervals above the bass
line indicated by the composer. In sonatas of this sort, the obbligato instrument(s) carry the main thematic
elements of the composition. The continuo bass line may imitate important motives from time to time; however,
the thematic involvement of the basso continuo is not essential. The texture of a sonata for obbligato soloist(s) and
continuo, therefore, is generally homophonic.

In other sonatas, the keyboard part is fully written out on two staffs. Aside from the typical sorts of ornamentation
that might have been supplied Page 19 →by any eighteenth-century keyboard player, nothing is left to the
performer's invention. The texture in this type of sonata is different from that of the continuo sonata because the
keyboard part is equally important as the instrumental part. Both performers are responsible for the presentation
and development of themes.

In the sonatas with obbligato keyboard parts, no bass-line instrument is needed for performance. The texture of a
sonata for solo instrument with obbligato keyboard usually consists of three real parts: the bass line and one of the
treble lines to be played on the keyboard instrument, and another treble line to be played by a melody instrument,
usually a violin or flute. This texture derived from the conventional trio sonata. One sonata by J. S. Bach exists in
two versions. One version is the four-movement Trio Sonata in G major for Two Flutes and Continuo, BWV
1039. The other, BWV 1027, distributes the same musical lines between a viola da gamba and a harpsichord.
Fully written-out keyboard parts became increasingly common as the eighteenth century progressed. Of the
instrumental chamber sonatas composed by Bach, those with obbligato keyboard parts outnumber those with
basso continuo parts by approximately two to one.17

VOCAL CHAMBER MUSIC: THE CANTATA

Just as the term sonata designates any composition performed as instrumental music, the designation cantata
specifies a piece involving voices. In seventeenth-century Italy, the cantata was typically a secular piece for a
vocal soloist with basso continuo and one or more obbligato instruments. The texts for these vocal chamber pieces
were often the work of aristocratic amateurs or literati, such as clergy and lawyers. Performances typically took
place in the palaces of ruling families or high-ranking clergy in the Roman Catholic Church—Queen Christiana of
Sweden, Cardinal Ottoboni, and Cardinal Pamphili, for instance. The poems typically included passages with lines
of seven or eleven syllables (and suitable for recitatives), in alternation with strophic, rhymed lines with a
consistent syllable count (and suitable for arias). Cantatas of a more elaborate nature, including a variety of
recitatives, arias, ariosos, and perhaps even instrumental introductions, interludes, and codas are often called arie
di più parte(arias with multiple sections).

Alessandro Stradella (1639-1682) ranks high among the early cantata composers. We are not certain of the origin
of all of his works, but those cantatas with texts by poets active in Rome were almost certainly composed by late
January 1677, since he left for Venice at the beginning of February Page 20 →of that year.18 Most of these pieces
are for a single or several vocalists with accompaniment of basso continuo with one or more obbligato
instruments. Because many of these pieces were composed for special occasions and performed for family and
friends at private, evening entertainments, they are sometimes called “serenatas.” Stradella's tale of the two
jealous lovers Tirsi (bass) and Licori (soprano) has a modest ensemble of two violins and basso continuo. The
piece, “Lasciate ch'io respiri, ombre gradite” G. 1.4-12, opens with a sinfonia in two movements for instruments,
and continues with five arias and two duets. The chamber ensemble of violins and basso continuo accompany the
voices throughout. The instrumental parts are all quite easy and can be managed with minimal rehearsal.

Of the seventeenth-century Roman composers of cantatas, Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) was the most prolific.
The texts of his cantatas deal not only with men and women in love and the associated issues, but also with history
and mythology. Scarlatti, who was also a prolific opera composer, sometimes used da capo structures in his
cantata arias. In some cantatas, such as Su le sponde del Tebro, Scarlatti augments the ensemble of two violin
parts and basso continuo with virtuosic solo trumpet to pair with the solo vocalist. When this is the case, several
players should be assigned to each of the first and second violin parts.

Though the Italians generally preferred secular cantatas, the composers of Lutheran Germany almost invariably
chose spiritual texts. In his three volumes of Symphoniae sacrae (sacred ensemble pieces; 1629, 1647, 1650),
Heinrich Schütz used the techniques he had learned during his two trips to Italy in 1609 and 1628 to study with
Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi respectively. The “few-voiced concertato” pieces of the Italians were
especially important during Schütz's second Venetian trip, and he examined this repertoire carefully. Although
Alessandro Grandi had left Venice only a few months before Schütz's arrival there in 1628, his music was still
easily accessible to Schütz. 19 In fact, Schütz's “O Jesu süß, wer dein gedenkt,” SWV 406, is an arrangement of
Grandi's “Lilia convallium.” By September 1629, Schütz had compiled his first volume of Symphoniae
sacrae—all with Latin texts, incidentally—for publication by the Venetian firm of Gardano.20 Of the twenty
pieces in the first volume, some must have been composed before Schütz left Germany. Because wind instruments
played a lesser role in Venetian music-making than in German ensembles, the pieces featuring winds are most
likely those that Schütz brought along for inclusion in volume 1. Among those pieces with winds is the stunning
“Fili mi, Absalon,” for basso, four trombones, and basso continuo. Page 21 →The text, from 2 Samuel 19:1,
recounts the reaction of King David to the news of the death. The piece is in four sections. The solemn opening
for trombones and continuo only makes it clear that the message we are about to hear is a gravely serious one. At
the same time, it demonstrates Schütz's magisterial command of counterpoint. The first vocal section declaims the
text with basso continuo only before repeating the text within the context of dense counterpoint including the
trombones. King David's opening statement is followed by another purely instrumental segment written in the
imitative contrapuntal style of the Italian canzona. The concluding section again delivers the text sung without
trombones. The final section combines voice with the full instrumental ensemble while repeating text that has
already been clearly heard.

The unusual instrumentation for bass soloist, four trombones, and basso continuo is identical to that of Schütz's
“Attendite, popule meus,” SWV 270, which has a comparable, multisectional design alternating contrapuntal
segments for instruments only, passages for voice and continuo only, and others utilizing the voice as one strand
within the contrapuntal fabric of the piece. Other interesting combinations of instruments in volume 1 appear in
“In te, Domine, speravi,” SWV 259, for alto, violin, bassoon, and continuo; “Anima mea liquefacta est,” SWV
263-64, for two tenors, two cornettos, and continuo; “Domine, labia mea aperies,” SWV 271, for soprano, tenor,
cornetto, trombone, bassoon, and continuo; “Jubilate Deo omnis terra,” SWV 262, for bass, two recorders, and
continuo; and “In lectulo per noctes,” SWV 272-73, for soprano, alto, three bassoons, and continuo.

This type of “few-voiced concertato” based on sacred texts provided the foundation for German cantatas of the
later Baroque. Dieterich Buxtehude (ca. 1637-1707) wrote several secular cantatas, both in Italian and German,
but the vast majority of his cantatas with obbligato instruments are on spiritual themes. His texts for the sacred
works are mostly German, but a handful of pieces are in Latin. The scoring is usually for solo soprano voice with
one to four solo string players plus basso continuo. Ironically, Buxtehude never worked in a church situation that
would have required any of these sacred vocal compositions, and none of them is genuine “liturgical” music for
the Lutheran church.21 His cantata Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BuxWV 98, for violin, soprano, and basso
continuo is a fine example of his work that shows features of the arie di piú parte. The eight sections of the piece
include three for instruments only as well as different tempos and meters for the various sections. In this cantata,
an exuberant setting of the Page 22 →words “singet, rühmet, und lobet” (sing, glorify, and praise) brings the piece
to its conclusion. In other cantatas, Buxtehude applies similar treatment to the words “Amen” or “alleluia.”

In his O dulcis Jesu, BuxWV 83, for two sopranos, two violins, and basso continuo, Buxtehude sets the prose
passages in a free recitativo or arioso style, whereas the poetic passages assume the character of an aria.
Structurally, this design parallels the secular cantatas of the Italians. It has been suggested that Buxtehude
composed this piece for an Italian castrato visiting the Marienkirche.22

It is well known that J. S. Bach knew and admired the music of Buxtehude. From mid-October 1705 until early
February 1706, he was absent from his post at the Neue Kirche in Arnstadt, having gone to Lübeck for the purpose
of attending Buxtehude's famous Abendmusiken (evening music) at the Marienkirche. These programs would have
included some of these cantatas or similar ones. The impact of Bach's experience was both immediate and long-
range: Within weeks of his return to Arnstadt, the Consistory of the Neue Kirche complained about his outlandish
and extravagant harmonizations of the traditional Lutheran chorale tunes. These, they contended, confused the
congregation and disrupted the services. Years later, when Bach was cantor of the Lutheran churches of Leipzig,
he wrote five cycles of cantatas for the liturgical year. Among the surviving cantatas are some real gems for solo
vocalist, obbligato instrument, strings, and continuo.

The original version of Cantata 82, Ich habe genug, dates from 2 February 1727. It was composed for the feast of
the Purification. The scriptural impetus for the libretto (authorship unknown) is the Song of Simeon (Luke
2:29-32), the text of the “Nunc dimittis,” customarily used at Vespers services. In its original version, bass soloist
is paired with oboe solo against the backdrop of strings and continuo. In one of the subsequent versions (1731),
Bach gave the vocal solo to a soprano, the obbligato part to a flute, and changed the key to E minor. Another
(1735) uses a mezzo-soprano and changes the key to C minor. In still other versions (1745/1748), the oboe da
caccia (oboe “of the hunt,” an oboe with a brass bell) is a curious addition to the score.

The formal design of the aria “Schlummert ein” is an interesting expansion of a conventional five-section da capo
aria plan whereby two additional reprises of the ritornello result in a rondo-like form, a design that was also used
from time to time by George Frideric Handel.

That Bach was fond of this cantata is apparent from the fact that portions of it appear in the Anna Magdalena
Klavierbüchlein (begun 1725); Page 23 →however, it is clear that the “transcription was made from the cantata
into the little keyboard book—not vice versa.”23

Cantata 51, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, is another of Bach's Leipzig cantatas, probably composed for 17
September 1730, after Bach completed his five cycles of cantatas for every Sunday of the church year. The
designation “In ogni Tempo” (at any time [of the church year]) probably indicates that Bach was less strict in
linking the text of this cantata to the scripture readings of a particular occasion.

The cantata is a showpiece for the two soloists, soprano and trumpeter. (Incidentally, a version of the piece by
Bach's son Wilhelm Friedemann adds a second trumpet and timpani to his father's original score.) This
instrumentation is most curious in German, Lutheran repertoire; however, it is common enough in Italian, secular
cantatas of the time, such as Alessandro Scarlatti's previously discussed Sul le sponde del Tebro. Because those
Italian pieces were secular compositions, women would have sung the vocal portions. But what about Bach's
sacred, Lutheran cantata? Could he have had a woman in mind? A leading Bach scholar claims that “in
conservative Leipzig, to think of a female soprano would be utterly out of the question.”24

Concerning the trumpeter, we are on firm ground: The part would have been taken by Gottfried Reiche
(1667-1734), the leading clarino player in the Leipzig, municipal wind players.

Despite its modest duration, Cantata 51 is remarkable for its compositional diversity. It employs “five
characteristic formal designs of the Baroque: concerto (movement 1), monody (movement 2), ostinato variations
(movement 3), chorale [trio sonata] (movement 4), and fugue (movement 5).”25
Page 24 →

TWO
The Crystallization of Genres during the Golden Age of Chamber
Music
TUNING, TEMPERAMENT, AND FORM
Important changes took place in the art of music around the end of the first quarter of the eighteenth century. One
of the most significant was the introduction of well-tempered tuning for keyboard instruments. With the advent of
well-tempered tuning, all twenty-four major and minor keys became available to composers. The first volume of
Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier appeared in 1722. In this same year, Rameau's groundbreaking Traité de
l'harmonie appeared in print.

The availability of all led to the creation of new musical forms based on the contrast between stable and unstable
structural components. This contrast became the basis of the pattern forms used throughout western Europe in
what is now generally called the Classical style.

With the advent of well-tempered tuning, it became possible to expand the simple binary forms of the early
eighteenth century by introducing numerous tonalities, often quite remote from the original tonic, at the beginning
of the second half of the binary plan. Initially, this tonal freedom was exploited in an almost childlike fashion. One
scholar has observed that: “Pre-Classic composers and writers seem to have taken special pleasure in modulations
for their own sake. The empfindsam composers used them for their shock value as they indulged in one “sea of
modulations” after another (to use Burney's term for Emanuel Bach's improvisations).”1 By the last quarter of the
eighteenth century, composers had learned to utilize Page 25 →shifting tonalities for purposes of form and
expression. Ultimately, the broadened harmonic palette made possible by equal temperament led to an expansion
of all of the tonally unstable components within the binary form, including the modulatory transition section in the
first half, as well as the development section, and the retransition section in the second half.

The advances made by the end of the first quarter of the eighteenth century in tuning and temperament not only
provided composers with a more diverse harmonic vocabulary, but also enabled them to expand considerably the
dimensions of an individual movement while maintaining its structural integrity. Similar tonal and architectonic
expansion can be seen in the rondos and other harmonic forms of the later eighteenth century.

In multimovement works, the rondo is often placed as the concluding movement to balance in energy and
complexity with the opening, expanded binary form movement. Internal movements generally are points of
relative repose, and, therefore, tend to make fewer demands of the listener's harmonic consciousness. The formal
designs of inner movements are quite diverse, but some of the more commonly encountered ones include theme
and variations, minuet and trio, scherzo and trio, or song form.

THE ADVENT OF THE PIANOFORTE

Though Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731) had already built pianos in the opening decade of the eighteenth
century, the instrument did not come into popular use until after the midcentury. Accordingly, many keyboard
compositions of the later eighteenth century appeared with titles like the one we find in the Sonatas, Op. 3 of
Leopold Kotzeluch: Trois sonatas pour le clavecin ou le forte-piano avec accompagnement d'un violon et
violoncelle (Three sonatas for the harpsichord or the fortepiano with accompaniment of a violin and violoncello).2

The question invariably arises: Do the scores of these works “for the harpsichord or the fortepiano” betray any
stylistic features that would make them more suitable for one instrument than the other? In many cases, the
decision is easily made. The prominence of echo passages, for example, would suggest that the music was
conceived for harpsichord, since that instrument typically possessed two manuals that could be set in advance with
stops that would produce contrasting dynamic terraces. Similarly, the presence of graduated dynamics would
indicate that the music was intended for the fortepiano. Unfortunately, not all cases are so clearcut. Title pages
were often written with one eye on musical aesthetics, while the other was fixed steadfastly upon the commercial
market.

Page 26 →

MUSIC FOR THE BOURGEOISIE

The rise of the bourgeoisie during the second half of the eighteenth century accounted for the increased
importance of chamber music. Music making became a pastime for amateurs. Many compositions appeared with
title pages indicating that the works were suitable “especially for music loving amateurs.” Some composers, Carl
Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) for example, attempted to appeal to the dilettante and the professional
musician alike by titles like that of his famous Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber (Sonatas for connoisseurs and
amateurs). A booming music-publishing industry came into being, and everything from solo sonatas for harp to
multimovement symphonies became available to the general public. Popular magazines of the day included scores
that appeared one movement at a time over a series of several issues. Music instruction manuals became
absolutely commonplace. C. P. E. Bach set the standard with his famous Versuch über die wahre Art das Klavier
zu spielen (Essay on the true art of playing keyboard instruments; 1753-62).3 Other treatises of the period include
Johann Joachim Quantz's Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (Essay of instruction for
playing the transverse flute; Berlin, 1752),4 and Leopold Mozart's Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule (Essay
on fundamental violin technique; Augsburg 1756).5 Later eighteenth-century tutors of note are Daniel Gottlob
Türk's Clavierschule (Keyboard tutor; 1789) and Muzio Clementi's Introduction to the Art of Playing on the Piano
Forte (London, 1801). To this short list, dozens of other titles could be added.

The increasing importance attached to the amateur player accounted in large part for the proliferation of chamber
music genres. It also accounted for the characteristic style that came to be associated with chamber music of the
mid-eighteenth century, a style that was light, pleasant, and agreeable.

This phase of midcentury chamber music is well documented in the writings of contemporary theorists. Johann
Adolph Scheibe (1708-1776), for example, wrote: “The ultimate purpose of the chamber style is above all to
delight and enliven the listener. He is thus brought to splendor, to joy, and to laughter…. From this can be
determined the general character of chamber music. It must above all be lively and penetrating.”6

MUSIC PUBLISHERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

The growing popularity of chamber music during the later eighteenth century was due in large part to
technological progress. The use of mass media Page 27 →for the dissemination of musical scores contributed
directly to the expanding number of amateur musicians. Increased demand for reasonably priced scores led to
further advances in the printing process. Perhaps the most important development in late eighteenth-century music
printing was the invention of lithography by Aloys Senefelder (1771-1834). This technique, which was used for
the printing of Haydn's sonatas Hob. XVI/40-42 in 1797, enabled publishers to produce scores in large numbers,
quickly, and with high quality.7 Many composers—even the heros of our musical heritage, like Haydn and
Beethoven—deliberately modified their musical styles for the purpose of increasing the market for their works.8

Among the music publishing firms came into being during the mid-eighteenth century, several merit discussion
here. Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf took over his father's meager business in 1745 and turned it into the
most progressive music-publishing enterprise in Germany. Breitkopf sold the firm to Christoph Härtel in 1796.
Equally important was the publishing company opened in Vienna in the fall of 1778 by Domenico Artaria. He and
his brothers became the publishers for Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven,
Antonio Salieri, Muzio Clementi, and many other luminaries of the later eighteenth century. Another important
Viennese publisher was Johann André, whose third son, Johann Anton, took over the firm after his father's death
and greatly expanded it. Johann Anton was also responsible for the purchase from Constanze Mozart of her
husband's unpublished manuscripts in the year 1800.

In France, the firms of Boyer, Bailleux, Huberty, and Pleyel catered to the increasing demand for accessible music
at reasonable prices. Huberty was one of the primary publishers for the repertoire of the Mannheim school. He
relocated in Vienna in 1777. Ignaz Pleyel's shop, which operated during the years from 1796 to 1834, issued the
first complete edition of Haydn's string quartets in 1802. Haydn had been Pleyel's composition teacher, and so,
these editions are of particular historical importance.

In London, the firm of Longman and Broderip opened in 1767. Muzio Clementi also operated a music-publishing
house there beginning in 1798. The enterprise was successful, and he began manufacturing musical
instruments—his pianos are perhaps the finest that were available at that time.

Even small towns like Augsburg and Nuremberg enjoyed the benefits of a local music publisher. Listing all of the
music publishers of the late eighteenth century would fill an entire volume, but several other firms that should at
least be mentioned include those of Franz Anton Hoffmeister Page 28 →(1754-1812), Tranquillo Mollo (1772-?),
and Christoph Torricella (1715-1798) in Vienna.

Hoffmeister published some of Mozart's most important works: His Quartet in D minor, K. 499, known as the
Hoffmeister Quartet, is only one product of the congenial relationship that existed between the composer and this
publisher. Mollo had once been a member of the firm of Artaria, but opened his own company in the summer of
1798. The publishing house of Torricella saw its heyday during the 1770s and early 1780s. Its publications
included works by Haydn, Mozart, J. C. Bach, Leopold Kotzeluch, Franz Anton Hoffmeister, and others.
Torricella also acted as a distributor for Antoine Huberty. Torricella's plates—all of engraved copper—were
acquired by Artaria in the summer of 1786. The catalogs of these firms present in detail the changing tastes of the
music-loving public and the evolution of chamber music and its principal genres during the late Classical era.

ENSEMBLE SONATAS OF THE LATER EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Some of the most typical fare to be found in the average later eighteenth-century music shop was the sonata
repertoire for keyboard (i.e., harpsichord, clavichord, piano, or organ) with the accompaniment of one or more
instruments. The vogue for such works was inaugurated in Paris by Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville
(1711-1772), who published his Pieces de clavecin en sonatas in 1734. Some years later, Johann Schobert (ca.
1735-1767) made his career in that same city by writing such works. His Op. 1 was a set of two Sonatas pour le
clavecin qui peuvent jouer avec l'accompagnement de violon (Sonatas for the harpsichord that may be played with
the accompaniment of a violin).9 Schobert's title invites performance either with or without the violin, but he was
not alone in allowing such flexibility: Leopold Kotzeluch (1747-1818), Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812), and
many others published pieces with indefinite scoring.

Some eighteenth-century collections of sonatas combine pieces for keyboard alone with others including added
instruments. Marie-Emmanuelle Bayon's collection of Six sonates pour le clavecin ou le piano forte dont trois
avec accompagnement de violon obligé, œuvre 1 (Six sonatas for harpsichord or piano forte, three with obligatory
violin accompaniment, Op. 1), which were published in the late 1760s, is a good example of a mixed collection.10

Titles sometimes involve a single melody instrument—usually a violin or a flute. At other times, two instruments
are mentioned—normally one Page 29 →treble and one bass instrument. Either or both parts may be described as
accompanimental, obbligato, or ad libitum.

In this sonata repertoire, it is impossible to differentiate between solos, duets, and trios.11 The performance of any
given sonata depended mainly upon the instrumentalists at hand and their respective skills at sight reading or
improvising parts, and the relationship of instruments in this repertoire is variable. In some pieces, the keyboard
part is clearly the primary one, and it carries the main melodies and harmonies. On the other hand, the titles of
some works suggest a fully developed, concertante sonata for keyboard and melody instrument. For example, a set
of three sonatas by Jacopo Gotifredo Ferrari (1763-1842) contains the designation: Trois sonates pour clavecin ou
forte-piano avec violon obligé et basse ad libitum…œuvre IIm.12 (Three sonatas for harpsichord or fortepiano with
obbligato violin and bass ad libitum, Op. 2.)

It is a mistake to assume that the interaction of the instruments in these ensemble sonatas became more complex
and highly integrated as the genre progressed historically. In fact, “There is not a direct line of ‘progress' from an
early optionally-accompanied style to the fully developed concertante sonata of Mozart and Beethoven. Rather,
the two styles existed side by side from mid-century and even beyond the turn of the century.”13 The accompanied
style sonata persisted even in the very latest works by Mozart.

For the sake of clarity, sonatas with real, obbligato parts for melody line instruments will be referred to as duo
keyboard sonatas, whereas those written in the optionally accompanied style will be called accompanied keyboard
sonatas. The neutral designation ensemble keyboard sonatas will be used in general references to both types of
pieces simultaneously.14

The Schobert sonatas of Op. 2 are representative of the ensemble sonata with keyboard during the midcentury.
The overall plan normally included several movements. Two-movement and three-movement formats were about
equally popular.15 In two-movement sonatas, both movements were ordinarily in the same key, though a change
in mode was possible. A contrast in tempo is also to be expected, but the precise tempo of each of the two
movements was never standardized. Three-movement sonatas were typically arranged with the inner movement in
the subdominant, relative minor, dominant, or (less frequently) the relative major. The tempo sequence of the
various movements was not regulated, although three-movement sonatas in the order fast-slow-fast are common.

Schobert's sonatas are remarkably dramatic and expressive; the young Mozart realized that when he first
encountered them during the sojourn he Page 30 →made to Paris with his family in 1764. Mozart was not alone in
his admiration for this type of writing, and “Schobert's works became immensely popular and continued to be
reprinted throughout the century.”16

In the later eighteenth-century sonata repertoire, a harp was sometimes substituted for the keyboard instrument.
Gotifredo Jacopo Ferrari's works, for instance, include the Trois grandes sonates pour harpe avec
accompagnement de violon et basse, Op. 18.17 Antonín Kammel (1730-1787) is more liberal in permitting any of
three possibilities in the instrumentation of his Six sonates for the piano forte, harpsichord, or harp with
accompaniments for a violin and violoncello, opera IX.

Though some of these titles suggest a trio of two melody instruments with some chord-playing instrument, very
few examples of this texture are present in the scores of the mid-eighteenth century. In many cases, the bass line
instrument simply doubles the lowest part of the harpsichord, piano, or harp.

Among the earliest chamber pieces to include an obbligato treble instrument, a written-out keyboard part, and an
independent string bass part was Jean-Philippe Rameau's Pieces de clavecin en concert, avec un violon ou une
flûte, et une viole ou un deuxieme violon (Harpsichord pieces in ensemble with violin or flute and viol or cello),
published in Paris in 1741.18 Even here, though, some pieces can actually be played—with Rameau's full
approval—as solo harpsichord works.

MOZART'S SONATAS FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO

In the course of his brief career, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote more than forty sonatas for piano
and violin.19 The earliest of these were youthful works during the grand family tour of Europe undertaken from
June 1763 until November 1766. In the index of Wolfgang's compositions that was assembled by his father in
1768, the first entry is: Sonates pour le clavecin avec l'accompagnement de violon dediées a Madame Victoire de
France par Wolfgang Mozart agé de sept ans. A Paris. œuvre I. His last such work, the Sonata in F major, was
composed in Vienna during the summer of 1788, the summer that witnessed the composition of his last three
symphonies.

The fact that Mozart's father, Leopold (1719-1787), was himself a fine violinist ensured that as a young composer,
Wolfgang came into contact with important repertoire for that instrument—and probably some unimportant
repertoire as well.20 If not by his father's doing, then, at least, as a result of his travels between 1762 and 1779,
Mozart was thoroughly familiar with stylistic developments taking place in western Europe during the Page 31
→mid-eighteenth century. One scholar has assembled a list of important musical centers that Mozart visited
during these years. That list includes Munich, Vienna, Pressburg, Augsburg, Schwetzingen, Mainz, Frankfurt,
Coblenz, Aachen, Brussels, Paris, London, den Hagg, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Malines (= Mechelen), Dijon, Lyons,
Geneva, Lausanne, Berne, Zurich, Schaffhausen, Donaueschingen, Biberach, Innsbruck, Rovereto, Verona, Milan,
Parma, Bologna, Florence, Cremona, Mantua, Lodi, Rome, Naples, Venice, Turin, Padua, Vicenza, Mannheim,
Nancy, and Strasbourg.21 This tally does not include recurrent visits that took place during the course of Mozart's
numerous tours.

Despite the ascendancy of the music-publishing industry during the mid-eighteenth century, musical styles at the
time were still largely regional affairs involving distinctive musical practices.22 These journeys provided Mozart
with comprehensive and firsthand knowledge of later eighteenth-century styles. Notorious but often vaguely
defined styles like the style galant, the Empfindsamer Stil, and the rococo, were, for Mozart, part of a living
musical culture. In all probability, he would have been aware of still other musical dialects that never made their
way into the history books.

Like his father, Mozart was a skilled violinist. As a leading pianist of the era, though, Wolfgang brought to this
repertoire the insight of the keyboard player and that of the violinist simultaneously. Accordingly, Mozart's steady
production of ensemble sonatas from the early 1760s until the summer of 1788 can be traced as a guide through
that literature in the later eighteenth century.23

Most of Mozart's sonatas for piano and violin begin with movements in duple meter; only about one-fifth of them
are in triple meter; there are two sonatas, K. 305 and 526, with opening movements in duple compound meter.
Major mode is used for most opening movements; only three sonatas, K. 59, 60, and 304, begin in the minor
mode. They may have two or three movements, and some commence with slow introductions. Perhaps the best
known of these is the Largo opening of the Sonata in B-flat major, K. 454, which Mozart wrote in 1784 and
performed with the twenty-year-old Italian violinist Regina Strinasacchi, who was making her concert debut in
Vienna.

The duo Sonata in C major, K. 296, was written in Mannheim during the month of March in the eventful year
1778. At the time, Mozart had grown weary of the Salzburg court and was looking for a new position. He
composed the C-major Sonata for Therese Pierron Serrarius, who was the teenage daughter of one of the
Mannheim court dignitaries and a pianist of some skill. The piece was intended as a gesture of gratitude for
accommodations Page 32 →that the family had provided for Mozart and his mother; hence, the overall mood of
each of the three movements in the sonata is cheerful, poised, and refined. The opening Allegro combines duple
and triple subdivisions of the beat, a characteristic rhythmic feature of the style galant. The violin part is idiomatic
to be sure. It begins with a full, C-major triad and continues with rich writing with more triads and double stops.

In this sonata, it would be impossible to eliminate the violin: The imitations of the principal motif that appear in
measures 9 to 14 of the exposition and in the corresponding passage in the recapitulation and countless other
details of the score could not be condensed into a single part for piano solo. The concluding movement of the
sonata, a modified rondo form, was subsequently revised and expanded to become the finale of the Concerto for
Flute and Harp, K. 299.

Later compositions, such as the accompanied Sonata in F major, K. 547, confirm that there is no evolutionary line
that leads from one ensemble keyboard sonata to the next. This sonata is “a small keyboard sonata for beginners,
with a violin.” Although the first movement contains some interesting interplay between the keyboard and violin,
the violin has a paltry role in the concluding, third movement, a set of variations that Mozart later arranged for
keyboard solo (K. 547b).

Despite the fact that the Sonata in F major was written ten years after the Sonata in C major, the interplay of the
two instruments in the earlier sonata is far more complex and effective. For that matter, even early works, like the
Sonata in C major, K. 10, contain passages such as those in the minuet “in the manner of a carillon,” where the
violin is an essential partner in a duo texture. Throughout his career, Mozart produced both duo keyboard sonatas
and accompanied keyboard sonatas, but it is clear that the choice fell to the one or the other as a result of
circumstances rather than stylistic or technical evolution.

CHAMBER MUSIC WITHOUT KEYBOARD

Figured-bass keyboard parts persisted throughout the eighteenth century in theatrical and orchestral music, but
they rapidly disappeared in chamber works. Terminology is not always helpful in determining what type of piece
we are looking at. During the mid-eighteenth century, what we call a “string quartet” could have been labeled a
sonata a quattro, sonate en quatuor, concerto, concertino, sinfonia, divertimento, cassation, serenade, or notturno
a quattro. It may be helpful to note the following guideposts in addressing such issues:

Page 33 →

In Viennese ensemble music from 1750 to 1780, Divertimento was the title of preference for every
nonorchestral scoring. Before ca. 1760, the title Partita also served the same function. The alternate
titles Cassation, Notturno, Serenade, and Concertino designated “light” music in various scorings
from 1750 on. The titles Quartet and Quintet occurred infrequently before ca. 1770 and supplanted
Divertimento as customary designations for “serious” chamber music only after 1780…. Each of the
five principal genres of Viennese chamber music in this period—the sonata for melodies and bass; the
Classical string trio, quartet, and quintet; the Classical scorings with an obbligato wind instrument;
the cassation for mixed ensemble with two horns; and the partita for winds—is transmitted under the
title Divertimento as well as more specialized ones. Thus Divertimento did not designate a genre at
all; it was a general title for nonorchestral instrumental music.24

In addition to the confusion of genres, ensembles, and forms, stylistic trends were also numerous and not entirely
distinct. To think that we are any more certain today about these stylistic distinctions than the musicians of the
eighteenth century would be a mistake. Our present-day terminology includes a befuddling array of terms that
have been applied in such diverse ways that they have lost whatever meaning they may have had. Consider, for
example, the words rococo, Empfindsamkeit, Sturm und Drang, and style galant.25 No decisive termination of
Baroque style is evidenced in the repertoire per se. Some Baroque genres were carried into the later eighteenth
century with little or no modification; others were discontinued altogether and only appear as curiosities in the
works of the most atavistic composers; and some genres came into being as a reaction against or as a synthesis of
existing genres of the early eighteenth century.

THE STRING TRIO

The two violins and string bass of the Baroque trio sonata did remain as the typical ensemble in the midcentury
string trio without keyboard: Of the twenty-one authenticated string trios written by Franz Joseph Haydn during
the 1760s, this scoring is used in all save one; nevertheless, this combination seems to have had limited appeal
during the eighteenth century or since then. The removal of the basso continuo resulted in an awkward void
between the high violins and the bass line.

The limited repertoire for string trio from the later eighteenth century includes a few interesting pieces. One of
them is Haydn's Echo Sonata, Hob. II/39, which requires two string trios seated in different rooms. The nickname
Page 34 →of this piece is an apt one, since the two ensembles play nearly identical phrases antiphonally and only
combine to form a sextet at elided cadence points.26

Only one of the authenticated trios, Hob. V/8, is scored for violin, viola, and cello. Among the works of
questionable authenticity, only Hob. V/D6, V/E-flat 1, and V/G7 indicate a scoring for treble, alto, and bass
stringed instruments. The String Trios, Op. 53 are arrangements of two-movement sonatas for keyboard solo that
Haydn had composed between 1782 and 1784 and dedicated to Princess Marie Esterházy.
Mozart's only important example of the string trio is K. 563, the Divertimento in E-flat. Beethoven contributed to
this genre with his Opp. 3 and 9, but not as richly as did Luigi Boccherini, for whom the medium had a particular
appeal. Ultimately, the string trio was superseded by the string quartet, the most important medium for Classical
chamber music.27

THE STRING QUARTET

There is no single parent source for the Classical string quartet. Though isolated works like Gregorio Allegri's
Symphonia for two violins, viola, and bass (1650) and Alessandro Scarlatti's four Sonate a quattro per due violini,
violetta e violoncello senza cembalo (ca. 1715-25) appear well in advance of the midcentury, these were isolated
rather than the origin of the genre.28 In orchestral writing of the Baroque, four-part string texture was common.
Many orchestral works could have been “string quartets” if performed with one player per part without continuo.
The symphony, sinfonia, overture, and concerto all contributed something of their formal and stylistic features to
the evolving quartet, as did the diverse compositions that were called divertimento, notturno, serenade, and
cassation, but this repertoire was usually predicated two-part counterpoint of the outer voices with harmonic filler
in the inner parts. Within this two-voice texture, doubling was common, and the viola often duplicated the violin
melody an octave below, or the bass line an octave above, while the cello was normally doubled at the octave
below by the double bass.

Different instruments often play from the same written line even though the doubling instrument might be in a
different octave. Usually the instruction colla parte (with the part) was simply written at the beginning of the part
along with an indication of the intended doubling instrument. This type of writing, commonplace throughout the
century, was essentially orchestral in conception; consequently, not all scores that have two treble clefs, an alto
clef, and a bass clef are necessarily genuine string quartets.

Page 35 →

The principal challenge of quartet writing was finding a way to promote equality among all voices. This
texture—known in late eighteenth-century French sources as the quatuor concertant—posed difficulties not only
for the composers but for the performers as well since, in such a piece, each voice of the musical fabric is
essential.

The title of J. B. Feray's Quatuor de petits airs, variés et dialogués pour deux violons, alto et basse, œuvre 1er
(Quartet of little songs, varied and set in dialogue for two violins, viola, and bass, Op. 1) makes it clear that the
“little songs” were intended to be familiar, easily accessible, and appealing. Quartets made up of familiar songs
were actually a French specialty that went under the designation quatuor d'airs connus (i.e., quartet of familiar
airs). Quartet arrangements of this sort remained popular in France well into the nineteenth century. Richard
Wagner (1813-1883), during his poverty-stricken years in Paris, agreed to arrange favorite tunes from Fromental
Halévy's opera La reine de Chypre (1841) for string quartet.29 Perhaps it was this distasteful task that turned him
for ever against the string quartet as a genre!

The quartet of popular tunes was complemented in France by the quatuor brillant, in which the first violin played
virtuosic passages while the other three players provided a simple accompaniment. Such quartets persisted well
into the nineteenth century.

Both the quartet of popular tunes and the quartet of brilliance exerted an undeniable influence on the writing of
later quartet composers, but neither provided the foundation for the string quartet as a genre. The repertoire of the
Classical era depended fundamentally upon formal integrity, harmonic interest, and thematic vitality in all four
parts. String quartets based on sonata form seem to have originated in the works of Italian composers including
Boccherini, Cambini, and their contemporaries. In their quartets, the influence of the opera sinfonia is apparent: Its
three-movement plan and the formal designs of those movements correspond precisely to the structure of the
earliest Italian string quartets. The four-movement was largely the work of the Viennese Classicists, Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven; but even in their works, many examples that depart from the four-movement design can
be found.
Much obscure repertoire will have to be examined before the definitive history of the string quartet can be written.
The pages of the Einzeldrücke vor 1800 of RISM list hundreds of midcentury quartets that have neither been
accounted for in scholarly literature to date nor been issued in modern editions.30 Until we have a more
comprehensive view of the earliest quartet literature, we must accept the traditional view that Franz Joseph Page
36 →Haydn and his colleagues in and around Vienna were the composers who established the Classical string
quartet.31

Among this group of Viennese composers, Franz Aspelmayr (1728-1786) played an important role. He was a
violinist, and he performed some of Haydn's quartets in 1782—perhaps those of Op. 33. He also knew both
Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart personally. Aspelmayr published two sets of quartets, Op. 2 and Op. 6, with six in
each set. These were his only quartets that appeared in print during his lifetime.

Frantisek Xavier Dusek (1731-1799), a close friend of Wolfgang Mozart and his wife, Constanza, also wrote
string quartets. The immensely prolific Jan Va hal (1739-1813) wrote approximately one hundred quartets. He
also performed quartet literature with Haydn, Mozart, and Karl Ditter von Dittersdorf (1739-1799), and so he must
have known at least some of Haydn's and Mozart's quartets, and they must have known some of his.

Dittersdorf published a set of six quartets with Artaria in 1788. He also wrote an isolated Quartet in E-flat major.
Important too are the works of Carlos Ordonez (1734-1786), who, despite his Spanish name, was a native of
Vienna. His Op. 1 was a set of six quartets published around 1775; Op. 2 was another set of six quartets. He wrote
many other quartets that survive only in manuscript copies. Wenzel Pichl (1741-1805) was absent from Vienna
during the years Mozart lived there, but he had been active at the Viennese court theater from around 1770 until
1777. Pichl wrote a great deal of solo violin music, violin concertos, and dozens of chamber pieces that Mozart, as
a violinist himself, might well have known. Pichl returned to Vienna in 1796. Whether Haydn knew his music is
difficult to say, but given Pichl's productivity and notoriety, it would have been hard for him to avoid it.

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN'S STRING QUARTETS THROUGH OP. 33

Haydn's earliest string quartets to appear in print were those of Opp. 1 and 2 (with six quartets in each set), which
were published in 1764 by Chevardiere and in 1765 by Hummel. The fifth and sixth quartets of Op. 1 were
actually flute quartets by Karl Joseph Toeschi (1731-1788), a Mannheim composer and flutist. Haydn's Op. 2 also
contains bogus quartets, the third and fifth (i.e., Hob. III/9 and III/11). Both pieces were originally for an ensemble
including double bass and two horns (see Hob. II/21 and II/22). In these early quartets, there are usually five
movements in the Page 37 →tempo sequence fast, moderate, slow, moderate, fast. The moderate tempo
movements are typically minuets with a trio.

The first quartets exhibiting the four-movement plan that became customary in Haydn's mature quartets are the set
of six in Op. 3 (Hob. III/13-18); however, Alan Tyson and H. C. Robbins Landon have pointed out that “the
evidence for Haydn's authorship [of Op. 3] is in fact somewhat flimsy.” The principal reason for counting these
six among the traditional total of Haydn's eighty-three string quartets derives from “their inclusion in the thematic
catalogue which Haydn approved and which prefaced Pleyel's collection…. But it is easy to give too much weight
to the fact that the elderly Haydn…acknowledged the thematic list in toto.”32 Apparently, these pieces were
actually the work of Romanus Hoffstetter (1742-1812), a monk active at the monastery of Amorbach. “There was
a very good reason for a publisher's removing Hofstetter's name from a work and replacing it by Haydn's: Haydn's
quartets were in greater demand.”33 Antoine Bailleux, who issued the set in 1777, hoped to improve sales by
associating the quartets with Haydn. This ruse must have been successful, since “Bailleux…two years after
issuing the [Op. 3] edition…published as Haydn's ‘Op. 28' six more quartets—all spurious.”34

Haydn's next authenticated quartets, those of Op. 9 (Hob. III/19-24) use the four-movement plan, but with the
minuet and trio as the second movement and the slow movement in third place. The quartets of Op. 9 were
probably composed during the closing years of the 1760s.35 The quartets of Op. 17 (Hob. III/25-30), which were
completed by 1771, have a feature in common with the quartets of Op. 9 insofar as both sets exploit the playing of
Luigi Tomasini (1741-1808), the first-chair player in Haydn's orchestra at Esterháza. Tomasini's brilliant
technique inspired the style of the first movement of Op. 17, No. 2 in F major with its frequent double stopping
and almost concerto-like flare.

The twelve chamber pieces in Opp. 9 and 17 not only establish the four-movement plan in Haydn's quartets, but
also, they “were conceived by Haydn as sets, and, as he was to do in all his later collections of quartets and
symphonies, he used a different key for each work…. Both sets also include, for the first time in Haydn's output, a
quartet in the minor mode: op. 9 No. 4…and op. 17 No. 4.”36 Beethoven later used this same plan in his quartets
of Op. 18, where the one minor quartet is No. 4 in C minor.

Donald Francis Tovey was the first to point out that in the quartets of Op. 20, written in 1772, Haydn finally
achieved equality among all four instruments. As he puts it, “Haydn's imagination has now awakened to the Page
38 →tone of the cello as something more than a mere amenable bass to the harmony. This awakening…freshens
the tone-colour of all four instruments from now onwards.”37 The quartets of Op. 20, also known as the Sun
Quartets, exhibit more varied textures than the earlier sets. Particularly striking is the importance of counterpoint.

Though the preferred texture in the second half of the eighteenth century was homophony, polyphony is an
important element in almost all of Haydn's scores. Mozart and Beethoven also imbued their compositions with
substantial contrapuntal passages. As a young man, Haydn learned the art of counterpoint by studying the Gradus
ad Parnassum (Vienna, 1725) of Johann Joseph Fux (ca. 1660-1741).38

Fux's treatise was widely disseminated, and it was studied by many of Haydn's colleagues including Leopold
Mozart, Michael Haydn, Nicolo Piccini, Luigi Cherubini, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, Abbé Vogler, Johann Joachim Quantz, Karl Ditter von Dittersdorf, Ignaz Holzbauer, and Ludwig van
Beethoven—to name a few. The text was so dear to Beethoven that, shortly before his death, he earmarked his
personal, annotated copy of it for his young friend, Ferdinand Piringer.39 Thus Fux's Gradus was the most
important link between the contrapuntal art of the high Renaissance and the mature Classical style.

Of the six quartets in Op. 20, three have fugal final movements. Each of the fugues is based upon a specified
number of subjects (soggetti); however, these are concise motifs rather than fugue subjects of the Baroque
manner. Counterpoint enabled Haydn to achieve equality among all four instruments; however, that goal was
achieved at the expense of other elements of quartet composition. When the subjects are combined, a dense
musical web results. Smaller groupings of several measures with clear phraseology—a characteristic feature of the
style galant—are virtually absent from the score. The pieces show Haydn's skill at serious writing: Learned
devices such as stretto, pedal points, and retrograde statements of themes appear on every page. Haydn was
justifiably proud of these compositional details, and he even pointed some of them out with prose labels in the
scores.

Haydn was not alone in turning to counterpoint as a means of achieving equality among voices. Franz Xavier
Richter (1709-1789), one of the most important composers of the Mannheim school, wrote string quartets with
similar complexities. Although Richter and Haydn worked independently, both faced the same challenges and
experimented with similar solutions.

The quartets of Op. 20 are intended for the connoisseur. Some modern critics even maintain that these Sun
Quartets are only partially successful from a musical point of view.40 Though the style of the Op. 20 Quartets is
Page 39 →not the one that came to be typical of Haydn's later works, frequent study of these scores will reveal
many charms and ingenious details that are not apparent at first hearing.

The fugue subjects from Op. 20, No. 6 demonstrate—in embryonic form—the characteristics that Haydn seized
upon in his later quartets. Of the three subjects, the third is the least like a fugue subject. It is the most concise and
clearly motivic; it lends itself to repetition, transposition, and variation. This terse construction afforded Haydn the
flexibility that enabled him to create long, interlocking, contrapuntal lines, on the one hand, and, on the other
hand, to weave the fragments freely among the voices. To hear this complex interplay of subjects is difficult. In
his later quartets, Haydn used even more concise motifs and took greater advantage of the flexibility they offered.
One flaw that might be claimed in Haydn's finales has to do with dramatic balance. The tension generated by these
fugues—all at lively tempos—must be dissipated. Haydn attempted to do this by uniting the four instruments in
unison statements of the fugue subjects, but the sudden shift from polyphony to monophony is jolting. The
interesting harmonies and rhythmic interplay of voices suddenly evaporate.

After the completion of the Op. 20 Quartets, Haydn was utterly silent as a quartet composer for almost ten years.
The six quartets of Op. 33 appeared in 1781. The Op. 33 Quartets are known by two different nicknames: They
are called Gli scherzi since, for the first time, Haydn replaced the minuet and trio with movements bearing the
designation scherzo or scherzando. The set is also known as the Russian Quartets because they are dedicated to
Grand Duke Paul Petrovich, who heard them in 1781 while visiting Vienna.

The Russian Quartets represent a turning point in Haydn's development as a composer of chamber music:

Page 40 →

Haydn's opus 33 is the masterwork of this epoch in which the Classical string quartet found its first
realization…. It is classic not only in the sense of a ripe, mature style whose evolution can be traced
with singular regularity from the first quartet-divertimenti onwards, but it is also classic in concrete
musical detail: in the forging of exceptional clarity of form with abundance and versatility of detail, in
individual deployment of voices within the basically homophonic framework of the movements, in
subtle manipulation of musical materials and bewilderingly simple musical effect, in cyclic
interlocking of structural forms and structural character, and in development of individualistic
movement forms and movement characteristics.41

According to Haydn himself, these quartets were written “in an entirely new and particular manner.” Some
dismiss this remark, which appears in Haydn's letters soliciting subscribers for manuscript copies of the Russian
Quartets, as a mere advertising gimmick. True, Haydn was an astute businessman; but as a businessman, Haydn
knew that disappointed customers would not return to be disappointed again. There are, indeed, new elements in
Op. 33.

In leafing through the Russian Quartets, a feature that strikes the eye is their generally thinner and more variable
textures, particularly in the finales, which tend to be sonata-rondos or rondo-variations.42 The new texture in the
Op. 33 is not really equal-voiced in the old, Baroque sense. It has been noted that “over the course of a movement,
Haydn gives each line equal opportunity to carry melodies, motives, or purely accompanimental figures; at any
one moment, however, he distinguishes melody from accompaniment.”43 Furthermore, freedom in motivic
manipulation is not limited to transitional passages and developmental sections, as in the repertoire of the 1760s
and 1770s. Instead, “The new texture may appear anywhere…and thus affects the interaction of virtually all
melody and accompaniment, whether or not the latter imitates the former or utilizes motives.”44

In Op. 33, Haydn uses periodic structure to amuse, delight, and surprise. In light of Haydn's publishing activities
at the time, the new tone of these pieces makes sense. His first publication with Artaria was his Pianoforte
Sonatas, Op. 30, published in 1780.45 At this point, he was concerned with the commercial market for his music
and hoped to establish a long-term relationship with the firm. In a letter to Artaria, Haydn wrote: “Should they
[Op. 30] have a good sale, this will encourage me to further efforts in the future, and to serve you diligently at all
times in preference to all others.”46 In the case of the Russian Quartets, Haydn's artistic outlook Page 41 →was
tempered by the healthy influence of popular appeal. In them, he accommodated the tastes of the music-loving
public while preserving musical craftsmanship and artistry.

Haydn's periodic structures seldom use pairings of four-measure phrases that move from tonic to dominant and
then from dominant back to tonic. Instead, Haydn changes some feature of this construction and eludes our
expectations. This tension between anticipated events and actual events gives the music its vitality and humor. In
the finale of Op. 33, No. 3, for instance, there is no harmonic motion at all in the first four measures. In the second
group of four measures, the harmony finally moves to the dominant. Although the construction is perfectly
symmetrical, the lack of harmonic motion in the opening four measures results in our being in the wrong place,
harmonically speaking, at the conclusion of the eight-measure “period.”

An equally amusing example appears in the finale of Op. 33, No. 2, the quartet that has come to be known as the
Joke. In this instance, the harmonic progression is what we might expect: motion from tonic to dominant in the
first four measures and the return to tonic in the second group of four; however, the period is not constructed of
two four-measure segments, but rather, of four two-measure groups. To underscore this Page 42 →arrangement,
Haydn isolates each two-measure fragment at the close of the movement (see meas. 152-72). The teasing pauses
between phrase fragments are a humorous twist, but Haydn has another trick in store: Since the first, two-measure
phrase fragment comes to rest on the tonic triad, it is added after an extended pause as a codettina to the full
statement of the period. This phraseological chicanery is so confounding that, unless one is following a score, the
actual ending of the piece is unclear; hence the “joke.”

The long-range forms of individual movements in Haydn's Russian Quartets mirror the witty cleverness of the
periodic structure. In Op. 33, Haydn uses two movement types that came to be specialties of his: the sonata-rondo
and the rondo-variation. Both forms combine elements of common pattern forms of the later eighteenth century. In
both instances, the unpredictable modifications that Haydn makes to these pattern forms add an intriguing charm
that sets his music in a class of its own.

The style that Haydn perfected in Op. 33 opened new vistas to him as a composer. The sparkle and spontaneity of
every page, the unlimited flexibility in transferring motivic interest from one voice to another, the cunning use of
periodic structure, and the masterful control of form were now confirmed. Listeners react to such music
instinctively. How fortunate for Haydn that, as of 1782, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a resident of Vienna as
well as a close personal friend! The satisfaction of approval, whether silent or spoken, from such a knowledgeable
composer would have been ample reward for Haydn; but the relationship between these two was a profound one
of mutual affection and professional respect. What will be of greater interest to the chamber music enthusiast is
the interaction that took place between these two men as each responded to the other's ingenuity.

THE STRING QUARTETS OF WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART THROUGH OP. 10

Mozart's first string quartets were written in Italy during his childhood visits there in the final months of 1772 and
the first several of 1773. At that time, the quartet was a relatively new genre.47 Although the First String Quartet,
K. 80, was originally in three movements, Mozart later added the Gavotte-en-rondeau that serves as the present
finale. This change was probably made late in 1773 during a trip to Vienna that Mozart made with his father.
Quartets Two through Seven are also in the three-movement plan commonly used in Italy at the time.

A fairly regular tempo sequence of movements is apparent in these Page 43 →early works. In its four-movement
form, K. 80 uses a layout reminiscent of the old sonata da chiesa—in this case, slow, fast, moderate, fast. The first
movement, in binary form, opens with a melody that anticipates the Countess's aria “Porgi, amor, qualche ristoro”
in act 2 of Le nozze di Figaro. The second movement is an energetic sonata-allegro form that sounds more like a
typical opening movement. The minuet and trio that forms the present third movement is in the customary A-B-A
design.

Five of the six subsequent three-movement quartets follow the plan fast, slow, fast or fast, slow, moderate. K. 159
contains three movements in the sequence Andante, Allegro, and Allegro grazioso.

The tonal relationships of movements in the early quartets are highly regulated. In the First Quartet, all four
movements are in G major. In five of the next six quartets, the central movements are in related keys: the relative
minor (K. 156, 159), the dominant (K. 155), a third-related key (K. 158), and the subdominant (K. 160). The
central movement of K. 157 does not change key; Mozart achieves harmonic variety by using the resources of the
parallel minor.

Mozart wrote K. 158 in F major in Milan, while composing the opera Lucio Silla. The first movement is a terse
sonata form. The principal theme exploits the alternation between duple and triple subdivision of the beat that was
characteristic of the style galant. The exposition of the principal themes is largely the responsibility of the first
violin; however, salient motifs frequently drift into the second violin part and even into the viola and cello parts.
When the second violin is not sharing in thematic development, it fills out harmonies with Alberti figuration.
Unison passages are important, and one such passage (m. 10) effects the transition to the dominant key in less than
half a measure. The development section is initiated by another unison passage in which staccato articulation and
sudden dynamic accents set it in contrast with the preceding material. The recapitulation (meas. 74-118) is a literal
one with the customary transpositions, and a codetta brings the movement to a close.

The second movement, in A minor, bears the tempo indication Andante un poco allegretto. This binary form
movement is a canonic elaboration of an Alberti figure. Here Mozart achieves a perfect synthesis of melody and
accompaniment: In reality, the melody is the accompaniment and the accompaniment is the melody. The
distinction between the two only becomes apparent as a result of delicate figuration, the interplay of duple and
triple subdivisions of the beat, and in the adaptation of the canonic imitations to the demands of binary form.

The last movement is a minuet exploiting duple and triple division of Page 44 →the beat, stock ornamental
figures, and unison passages. K. 158 is the most cohesive of the youthful quartets and gives a glimpse of Mozart's
later quartets. As a group, the seven Italian quartets generally exhibit homophonic texture, whereas counterpoint is
limited and largely coloristic. Sometimes transitions from homophonic to contrapuntal textures are awkward.
Texture, periodic structure, harmonic rhythm, and harmonic progression are effective yet predictable. In these four
parameters, Mozart's maturation as a composer can be traced. In his later quartets, greater compositional skill is
wedded with a corresponding growth in the originality of his invention.

The next six quartets, K. 168 through K. 173, were all composed in Vienna during the month of August in the year
1773. Wolfgang and Leopold had gone there as part of the retinue of the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg,
Hieronymus Colloredo. Presumably, Mozart hoped to publish the pieces in Vienna, but they were not published
until 1801, when they were issued by Johann Anton André as Op. 94. In these quartets Mozart uses the four-
movement plan that came to be the norm in his formal chamber pieces, including the late string quartets and
quintets.

In the four-movement scheme, Mozart's preferred tempo sequence is fast, slow, moderate, fast. The moderate
movement is ordinarily a minuet. Exceptions are K. 170, which has the sequence Andante, Menuetto, Poco
Adagio, and Allegro [rondo]; and K. 171, with its unique design, Adagio-allegro-adagio, Menuetto, Andante,
Allegro assai. Both quartets reverse the internal movements and place the minuet in second position.

The tonal arrangement of movements remains variable in these four-movement quartets, but in three of them, the
slow movement is in the key of the subdominant. Of the remaining quartets, two, K. 168 and 173, have all
movements in the same key with a change of mode in the slow movement. In K. 168, the shift is from F major to
F minor; in the latter, three movements are in D minor with a shift to D major in the second movement. The
Andante of K. 171 (third movement) is in C minor, the relative minor of the principal tonality, E-flat major.

These six Viennese quartets contain some impressive writing, such as the canonic Andante (con sordini) of K. 168
and the fugal finale of that same quartet. The rich texture of the Andante of K. 169 results from frequent double
stops in the second violin and viola. This movement represents a true chamber music style, since double stops are
virtually nonexistent in the orchestral writing of the period. The opening movement of K. 170, a theme with five
variations, is the first example of this form in Mozart's Page 45 →compositions for string quartet. The finale of K.
173 is a remarkable fugue based on a chromatically descending subject. The spirit and detail of this fugue, though,
relate it more closely to the Baroque tradition than to the increasingly motivic fugues of Haydn's Op. 20 Quartets.

After these thirteen youthful quartets, Mozart wrote none for almost ten years. In 1782, his interest in the genre
was renewed as a result of his acquaintance with Haydn's recently completed quartets of Op. 33. Mozart's
knowledge of Haydn's Op. 33 must have been an in-depth one: He played the viola in a quartet with Haydn,
Dittersdorf, and Vahal (who played first violin, second violin, and cello respectively); thus, Wolfgang came to
know these pieces with their composer at his elbow.
Mozart usually wrote quickly and with great facility; but the six quartets of Op. 10 were labors of love that
occupied him for several years. In December 1782, Mozart completed the first one, the G-major Quartet, K. 387.
In 1783, he added the D-minor Quartet, K. 421, and the E-flat-major Quartet, K. 428. A fourth quartet, the Quartet
in B-flat major, K. 458, was completed in 1784. The fifth and sixth quartets in this set, K. 464 in A major and K.
465 in C major, were completed in January 1785. This was dedicated to Haydn, to whom Mozart expressed his
esteem in the elegant dedication that he wrote for the first edition, which was published by Artaria in 1785.

To my dear Friend Haydn

A father who had decided to send his children out into the great world felt that it was his
responsibility to confide them to the protection and guidance of a very celebrated man, especially
when the latter by good fortune was at the same time his best friend. Here they are then, O great man
and dearest friend, these six children of mine. They are, it is true, the fruit of a long and laborious
effort, yet the hope raised in me by some friends that it may be at least partly compensated
encourages me, and I flatter myself that this offspring will serve to afford me some solace one day.
You yourself, dearest friend, during your last visit to this capital, demonstrated to me your satisfaction
with them. It is this indulgence above all that urges me to commend them to you and encourages me
to hope that they will not seem to you altogether unworthy of your favor. May it please you to receive
them in a kindly way and be their father, guide, and friend. From this moment, I cede to you all of my
rights in them, begging you, however, to look indulgently upon the defects that the partial eye of a
father may have concealed from me, and in spite of them, to continue in your generous Page 46
→friendship for him who so greatly values it, in expectation of which I am, with all my heart,
To my dearest friend
From your most sincere friend,
Vienna, 1 September 1785
W. A. Mozart

The proportions of the Op. 10 quartets are roughly double the lengths of Mozart's earlier quartets. More significant
is their greater musical density. The motivic interplay of voices is thorough; texture changes constantly, the
harmonic idiom is more complex; and formal designs are more extensive. The demands upon listeners and upon
the players, particularly the cellist, are increased too.

The compositional daring of Op. 10 must have intrigued Haydn. The harmonies in the opening of the C-major
Quartet, K. 465, for example, were so bold that eighteenth-century publishers “corrected” what they believed to be
mistakes. These striking sonorities resulted in the nickname by which this piece is still known: the Dissonance
Quartet. The opening twenty-two measures use the key of C in its major and minor form simultaneously. A-flats
grind against A-naturals and B-flats against B-naturals, but within the context of the individual lines, each of the
chromatic forms of the sixth and seventh scale degrees is necessitated by Mozart's exacting voice leading. Note
the astonishing precision in specification of phrasing, articulation, and dynamics; almost every single note is
accompanied by some instruction.

In this introductory passage, Mozart integrates ornament and structure. The principal theme, stated in the viola in
the first measure, is a turn figure that is imitated in the second violin part a fifth higher on E-flat, then in the first
violin part a tritone higher on A-natural. The cello line combines variant scale degrees of the ascending and
descending minor scale in its chromatic descent from C to G, the root of the dominant half cadence on which the
introduction comes to rest. Interesting, too, is the reversal of this chromatic movement, which appears in the cello
part in measure 13. This ornamental condensation of the larger, bar-by-bar descent occurs in the midst of a voice
exchange that delays the arrival at the dominant.

This concentration and intensification of musical events gives some indication of the intricacies of these quartets.
Haydn realized this: During Leopold Mozart's 1785 visit to Vienna, he met with Haydn, who told him: “Before
God and as a honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me in person or by name.”

Page 47 → Page 48 →
Haydn's reaction to Mozart's Quartets of Op. 10 went beyond praise. In his six Quartets, Op. 50, completed in
1787 and dedicated to King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, the influence of Mozart's ingenious chromaticism is
clear. Within the first seventeen measures of Op. 50, No. 5, for example, Haydn has introduced two chromatic
alterations, C-sharp (meas. 5, 13) and E-flat (m. 17). These pitches give colorful departures from the prevailing
tonality, but as the quartet progresses, they assume more than local significance. In the first twelve measures of
the development, we return to E-flat, but now it is temporarily tonicized (meas. 77ff.). Similarly, when C-sharp
appears in the recapitulation, it is respelled as a D-flat in the retransition, and acts as a Neapolitan of the dominant
in the key of F major. What initially appeared as local ornamentation has now assumed structural significance.

By the early 1780s, both Haydn and Mozart were producing quartet masterpieces in the Classical style. The
consolidation of the string quartet as a genre seems to have taken place at the precise moment that the fully
developed manner of Viennese Classicism came into being; thus, the string quartet might well be viewed as the
quintessential genre of the era.

MOZART'S LATE STRING QUARTETS

Mozart wrote four quartets after Op. 10. These are the Hoffmeister Quartet, K. 499 in D major, and the three
Prussian Quartets.

The Hoffmeister Quartet, named after Franz Anton Hoffmeister, who published the first edition of the piece,
marks a new direction in Mozart's use of form. Generally, Mozart's stable tonal areas—in sonata forms,
particularly the tonic and secondary key areas of the exposition and the corresponding portions of the
recapitulation—contain a great diversity of themes Page 49 →and motifs. In the first movement of the Hoffmeister
Quartet, though, Mozart uses the same theme in the tonic and dominant. The first theme is not a single idea but
actually a series of distinctive motifs. In the secondary key area, Mozart uses the same motifs, but their application
is so different that the absence of a new theme is hardly noticed. Furthermore, the contrapuntal ingenuity with
which he handles his material never fails to hold the listener's interest. The Hoffmeister Quartet was completed in
1786 (on 19 August), one of the most happy and productive years in Mozart's life.

The first movement of K. 499, with its downward skipping theme, is cast in sonata form, but the tempo indication,
Allegretto, gives the movement a more relaxed mood than is customary in Mozart's first movements. The ensuing
minuet begins conventionally, but in the second strain of the A section, imitations appear in syncopated rhythms.
The third movement, though conforming to prevailing tastes in its generally relaxed tone, is nevertheless a sonata
form without the repeats. The finale is another sonata form.

Mozart's C-minor Adagio and Fugue for strings, K. 546 dates from 1788, but the fugue, originally for two pianos
(K. 426) was probably composed in 1783, when he was investigating various scores by Bach and Handel in the
collection of Baron Gottfried van Swieten. The piece, which was published by Hoffmeister, is usually played by
string quartet even though the original sources for the fugue suggest that it was probably intended to be performed
orchestrally with multiple players and double basses. The fugue shows that Mozart had fully absorbed the
influence of J. S. Bach's contrapuntal art, for in it, he treats the subject in canon, inversion, and stretto. Despite its
archaic style, this fugue, like the double fugue based on a theme of Handel's that Mozart wrote as the “Kyrie” of
the Requiem Mass, K. 626, is powerful music.

The so-called Prussian Quartets were intended for King Friedrich Wilhelm II, an amateur cellist. (Beethoven later
wrote the two Sonatas Op. 5 for cello and piano for him.) The history of the Prussian Quartets begins in April
1789, when Mozart set out with Prince Karl Lichnowsky for Berlin. Mozart appeared at the court in Potsdam on
26 May. It is conceivable that the idea of his writing some quartets for King Friedrich was suggested at this time.
Composition probably began immediately. The D-major String Quartet, K. 575, and the B-flat Quartet, K. 589,
were the first two completed, but the third of the quartets, K. 590 in F major, was not finished until June 1790.
When the set of three appeared in print, the edition contained no mention of Friedrich Wilhelm II, and Mozart was
already dead.
The tonal levels in the first movement of the D-major Quartet are delineated by contrasting themes, the second of
which is stated by the cello. Page 50 →The ensuing Andante and minuet movements lead to a remarkable finale in
which a transformation of the principal theme of the first movement serves as the basis of a sonata-rondo design.
In 1789, cyclic recollection of themes was still a rarity, and so this quartet stands out for historical as well as
musical reasons.

The prominence of the cello is not much apparent in K. 589; however, the first movement of K. 590 showcases the
monarch's instrument. Note, too, that a thematic transformation of the first movement's main theme becomes the
basis of the second theme.

MOZART'S STRING QUINTETS

Mozart composed six string quintets, all requiring two violins, two violas, and one cello. Recordings frequently
feature all six pieces as a set; however, Mozart neither wrote them at the same time, nor intended them as a group.
The quintets exhibit disparate styles: The earliest, K. 174 of 1773, shows Mozart as a gifted but not yet brilliant
composer. Another of the quintets, K. 406 in C minor, is actually a transcription of the Serenade K. 388 of 1782,
which Mozart apparently felt was too good to let pass by the wayside after only a few hearings. Indeed, the
version for string quintet is so thoroughly convincing that one must question whether, perhaps, Mozart envisioned
the string quintet scoring of the piece even as he wrote the serenade version. The formal complexity of the score
and its contrapuntal richness—exceptional in music for wind ensembles at the time—would certainly suggest this
view.48 The pair of quintets, K. 515 in C major and K. 516 in G minor, were completed respectively on 19 April
1787 and 16 May 1787. This year witnessed changes in Mozart's life. At the time he wrote the quintet in G minor,
“It must have been obvious to Mozart that, at least with the Viennese, he had failed as a composer.”49 Family
heartaches compounded Mozart's difficulties: “His father, Leopold,…was ill and, in fact, died less than two weeks
after the Quintet was finished.”50

The G-minor Quintet is suffused with a tension and profound despair that are rarely encountered in Mozart's
works. The details of Wolfgang's relationship with Leopold are, by now, well known. It will be sufficient to note
that virtually all of Wolfgang's education—both musical and academic in the broader sense—was Leopold's
doing. Wolfgang's letters to his family reflect not only a deep-rooted respect for his father's judgement, but even a
certain dependence upon him for approval.51 The turmoil of the G-minor Quintet parallels Wolfgang's
psychological state in face of his father's impending death. Still, this passionate music had a specific function
within Page 51 →Mozart's artistic vision: The quintets K. 515 in C major, K. 406 in C minor, and K. 516 in G
minor were apparently intended to be published as a set of three. The former work is typical of Mozart's music in
C major: It is powerful, dynamic, and exhilarating. The C-minor and G-minor quintets are counterparts as well as
complements within the context of the set of three.

The opening of the C-major Quintet is almost orchestral in its style. The principal theme is essentially a
“Mannheim Rocket”; similarly, the lower strings employ a temolando figuration that was common in symphonies
of the Mannheim school. What is not typical of midcentury style, though, is the complexity of this music. The
self-assured C-major rocket is quickly transformed into a minor version. Chromatic alterations of all sorts intrude
upon the typical simplicity of this favorite key of beginning musicians. Formal plans are extended—the exposition
alone is 151 measures—but, nevertheless, clear. In the first movement, tonal levels are delineated by sharply
contrasting thematic ideas. The repeated-note figure of the second theme sets it apart from the opening rocket. The
closing theme is the only one that uses syncopation.

The publication of the piece by Artaria placed the Minuet and trio in second place followed by the Andante, but
recent scholarly editions have reversed the movements in order to restore what were apparently Mozart's
intentions.

The G-minor Quintet opens with an expansive sonata whose principal theme is a highly chromatic line with an
equally chromatic harmonization. The third movement, Adagio ma non troppo, calls throughout for muted strings.
Mozart chose a third-related key, E-flat major, for this movement. The lovely melody sung by the violin in the
central section is soon taken up in imitation. Its off-beat accompaniment gives it a degree of melancholy sweetness
and charm achieved rarely even by Mozart. The finale is prefaced by a doleful arioso for violin played at an
adagio tempo. Hardly an “introduction,” this exquisite passage constitutes somewhat more than one-fourth of the
whole finale. The ensuing rondo, flowing and elegant, rescues the quintet from utter despair, and sends the listener
away contented.

Of the remaining quintets, we should note the Quintet in E-flat major (K. 614, of 1791). This was Mozart's final
work for chamber ensemble.

HAYDN'S LATE QUARTETS

Haydn's later string quartets include the sets issued as Opp. 51, 54, 55, 64 (those of Opp. 54, 55, 64 generally
known as the Tost Quartets), 71, 74 (these two known as the Apponyi Quartets), 76 (Erdödy Quartets), and the
last two Page 52 →completed quartets, those of Op. 77 (Lobkowitz Quartets). In all these, he used many of the
musical devices that he had established in his early quartets, but certain of the quartet groups are more
serious—along the lines of Op. 20—while others show a more genial tone—reminiscent of Op. 33.

The quartets of Op. 51 originated as orchestral pieces to be played between the meditations on the Seven Last
Words of Christ on the Cross. They were commissioned by the Cathedral of Cádiz in southern Spain in 1785. To
these seven adagio movements, Haydn added an Introduzione and Terremoto (introduction and earthquake). In
1787, he revised them for string quartet. The movements are monothematic and supposedly use themes inspired
by their corresponding Latin texts. (Haydn later made a choral arrangement, so the correspondence of words and
melodies can be verified.)

The twelve quartets of Opp. 54 (three), 55 (three), and 64 (six) were composed between 1788 and 1790 for Johann
Tost, who, after serving as violinist in the Esterhaza orchestra, became a wealthy merchant. The first violin part is
designed to highlight Tost's playing; thus, the quartets are representative of the quatuor brillant manner. Op. 64,
No. 5 in D, nicknamed the Lark, because of its frequent, soaring, arpeggiated first-violin melodies, has emerged as
a favorite from these twelve. The second movement, Adagio cantabile, shows Haydn's finest lyrical manner. Here
and there, it is reminiscent of the slow introduction to the finale of Mozart's G-minor Quintet, K. 516. Interesting,
too, is the chromatic trio of the Minuet.

Opp. 71 and 74 contain three quartets each. They are known collectively as the Apponyi Quartets after Count
Anton Apponyi (1751-1817) to whom they are dedicated. Haydn and Count Apponyi were personal friends, and
the count had been Haydn's sponsor when he sought admission to the Masonic lodge “Zur wahren Eintracht”
(Genuine concord). Although Count Apponyi was himself a violinist, Haydn's quartets were composed for
performance at the London concerts of Johann Peter Salomon (1745-1815) during the 1794 concert season.
Salomon, who specialized in the performance of chamber music, gave the premiere of these quartets at the
Hanover Square Public Rooms.

Haydn first visited London in 1791. He heard Salomon's playing during that sojourn—perhaps in a performance of
the recently completed quartets of Op. 64. When Haydn wrote the Apponyi Quartets, Salomon was well known to
him, as were the concert hall in which the performances took place and the tastes of the audiences there. Haydn
was fascinated by England, by British customs, and by its society and concert. Apparently the gentry of the city
were equally fascinated by him.52 The public concerts Page 53 →that Salomon sponsored had been a great
success. The set of six London Symphonies that Haydn composed for the first visit were greeted with warm
applause, and Haydn became somewhat of a hero in the eyes of English music lovers. For his second journey, he
wrote another set of six symphonies as well as these two sets of quartets. The B-flat major and D-major quartets,
the first two in Op. 71, were probably composed in the closing months of 1792; the remaining quartets were
composed in Vienna during 1793.

The six Apponyi Quartets are not “domestic” music; they are for the concert hall; thus, they mark the transition to
our contemporary understanding of “chamber music.” The challenge to Haydn was a new one, but he was already
familiar with most of the practical considerations of public music-making. The first concern was to quiet the
audience and attract their attention. In the E-flat and C-major quartets, Op. 71, No. 3 and Op. 74, No. 1
respectively, this objective was achieved with only a few chords marked with fermatas and sounded at a forte
dynamic. (Perhaps performers may hold these chords until their purpose is accomplished.) In the first quartet of
Op. 71, the Quartet in B-flat major, a striking succession of chords achieves the same objective. The Quartet Op.
71, No. 2 in D major commences with an introductory Adagio. Each quartet begins with a gesture that grabs
attention, yet the ideas are well suited to the medium of the string quartet.

Harmonies are unusual; the Quartet in E-flat, Op. 71, No. 3, contains music in the key of F-double-flat! Virtuosity
both in the use of counterpoint as well as in performance techniques complements Haydn's remarkable harmonic
manner. Formal designs, such as the pairing in the finale of Op. 71, No. 2 of an Allegretto with an Allegro based
on a transformation of the theme of the former, also contribute to the diversity found in this fascinating group of
quartets.

Among the late quartets, Op. 76, No. 3 in C major (1796) is undoubtedly the best known, its second movement
being the set of four variations on Haydn's hymn “Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser” (God protect Emperor Franz), a
tune that served later for the national anthems of Germany and Austria, as well as the popular hymn “Glorious
Things of Thee Are Spoken.”53

HAYDN'S SIGNIFICANCE IN THE HISTORY OF THE STRING QUARTET

Haydn was one of the first composers to achieve a compelling style of quartet composition. The public recognized
him during his own lifetime as Page 54 →a formidable voice in the field of chamber music. Haydn's influence on
Mozart, particularly in this difficult, new genre, is equally clear; but Mozart was one of many composers who
learned from Haydn, either as a result of personal contact or through knowledge of his compositions. Ignaz Joseph
Pleyel (1757-1831), a prolific composer, a pupil of Haydn's, and an instrument manufacturer, was also an
important music publisher. During the years 1801-2, he published eighty-three Haydn quartets (up to Op. 76 and
including the misattributed Op. 3) as the Collection complette des quatuors d'Haydn dédiée au Premier Consul
Bonaparte. Finally, Haydn acted as Beethoven's mentor from the of his arrival in Vienna in 1792 until Haydn's
departure for his second London visit. Beethoven took the techniques that Haydn had developed in his quartets
and transformed them to serve his needs in the first Romantic works for that medium.

The string quartet was the most important type of chamber music during the Classical era. The sheer number of
them bears witness to its role in the musical culture of the time. Of greater significance is the fact that the string
quartet was the genre in which composers tended to express their most profound ideas; nevertheless, to limit our
understanding of later eighteenth-century chamber music to the string quartet would be to exclude a vast and
significant body of repertoire. Our discussion of Beethoven's music must therefore be put aside until we have
investigated the chamber music of the Classical era that involved wind instruments.
Page 55 →

THREE
Classical Chamber Music with Wind Instruments
CHAMBER MUSIC FOR WINDS WITH STRINGS
Many scores by Haydn, Mozart, and their contemporaries throughout Europe have come down to us bearing the
designation divertimento. Other pieces are called notturno, serenata, cassation, or Nachtmusik. Whereas
divertimento denoted performance by one player per part, these other designations did not necessarily indicate
nonorchestral scorings.1 The serenade literature of the later eighteenth century can only be understood as chamber
music insofar as no conductor would have been needed, and, in some cases, the performance would have had one
player per part; nevertheless, some of the repertoire encompassed by these designations was not chamber music at
all since it would have been played out-of-doors. In that context, the performers usually stood during concerts.

The cello had a rather short peg during the eighteenth century; consequently, it could not easily be played in a
standing position. The double bass, on the other hand, had a longer peg as well as a strap to be used for
suspending the instrument around the player's shoulder. With this information in mind, the significance of the
term basso in designating the lowest part of the divertimento/serenade literature becomes apparent. The labeling
of the lowest string part as either basso or violoncello in late eighteenth-century scores is also helpful in
distinguishing actual string quartet literature from divertimento/serenade repertoire. When chamber music for
strings was performed indoors, the bass line was usually played by the violoncello; on the other hand, repertoire
performed al fresco more commonly used the double bass on the bass line.

Page 56 →

This modified instrumentation had significant consequences. The eighteenth-century double bass was different
from the present-day instrument in that its tone was lighter, more transparent, and blended more easily with the
stringed instruments in the higher registers. The serenade double bass was also unusual in that it was a

five-string model…and its lowest string was normally tuned to contra F'—not to E', and certainly not
to contra C'. Hence we hypothesize that any bass part in soloistic chamber music which consistently
goes below notated F, especially one that exploits notated low C frequently or in exposed contexts, is
written for cello. Conversely, if in a full-scale multimovement work the bass never goes below
notated F, it may well reckon with solo double bass.2

The pitches that we find in the scores of string bass parts of serenades, cassations, nocturnes, and some
divertimenti would actually have sounded an octave lower than written. The disparity in register between viola
and double bass was resolved by the addition of pairs of winds—often horns—to fill in this range.3

Mozart's Divertimento in F major, K. 247, composed in June 1776 for the name day of Countess Antonia Lodron,
the sister of Archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo, is a good example of his essays in this genre. The ensemble
consists of four-part strings with a pair of horns. The first movement is a bristling Allegro in common time with
the primary melodic motifs in the first violin part. The second violin often reinforces the melody at the third or
octave below, or at the unison. The terse phraseology in all seven movements places this work by the twenty-year-
old Mozart squarely in the tradition of the style galant. The concise harmonic and melodic building blocks are
repeated liberally, but each time, Mozart enlivens the repetition with some modification of dynamics, phrasing, or
articulation.

The first movement is a conventional sonata. The secondary theme, in the dominant key, contains some interesting
chromatic color tones as it moves on to the closing thematic group. The opening theme is truncated in the
recapitulation, but Mozart compensates by replacing the deleted material in an eight-measure codetta.
A triple-meter Andante and a first Minuetto lead to an Adagio movement in the subdominant. With a practical eye
to the endurance of the brass players, Mozart reduces the scoring in the Adagio to two violins, viola, and basso.
Here Mozart makes much more extensive use of double stops in the second violin and viola parts than in any of
the preceding movements, presumably owing to the absence of the horns.

Page 57 →

The remainder of this divertimento consists of three movements: a second Minuetto, a diminutive Andante, and a
concluding Allegro, which balance and round out the piece. The architecture of the work is quite carefully
conceived—including a Trio in B-flat major that acts as a counterpart to the excursion to that key in the Adagio
movement.

The New Mozart Edition of the Divertimento in F major, K. 247, is prefaced by a March, K. 248, in the same
key.4 Almost invariably, a march would have been included in outdoors performances. “These marches served, as
all authorities confirm, as the entry- and exit-musics before and after the program, and they indicate that the
performance of the Divertimento proper would have taken place in the fresh air.”5

MOZART'S OCCASIONAL WORKS FOR WINDS AND STRINGS

As we return indoors, we find other works for mixed chamber ensembles of winds and strings. Among Mozart's
simplest pieces of this type are the quartets for flute and strings, K. 285 in D major (1777), K. 285a in G major
(1778), K. 285b in C major (1781), and K. 298 in A major (1786-87). The first two quartets were apparently the
result of a commission from a Dutch amateur named in Mozart's letters as “De Jean.” Some suppose him to have
been Villem van Britten Dejong, while others suggest that he was Ferdinand Dejean, a surgeon by trade.6

The flute quartets resemble the ensemble sonatas and popular French quartets of the period insofar as the basic
texture consists of a singing melody with straightforward accompaniment. The strings generally provide harmonic
support for the flute part, which varies in interest from one quartet to the next and from one movement to the next.
Another similarity with the ensemble sonata literature can be seen in the format of movements, which may
number two or three. K. 285, generally considered the best of the four flute quartets, follows a three-movement
plan. The central movement, an expressive Adagio, shifts to the relative minor key.

K. 298 has traditionally been assigned to the Paris journey of 1778.7 Einstein long ago noted that K. 298 was a
humorous, musical hodgepodge including parodies of works by Cambini and Paisiello.8 Subsequently, the name
of Franz Anton Hoffmeister was added to the roster.9 Of particular interest, though, is the fact that the citation of
“Chi mi mostra, chi m'addita dove sta il mio dolce amore,” from Paisiello's opera Le gare generose (1786),
renders the date of 1778 impossible.

On a different level from the flute quartets is the three-movement Quartet in F major for oboe, violin, viola, and
cello, K. 368b. Mozart composed Page 58 →this piece for Friedrich Ramm (1744-1811), then the leading oboe
player of the Mannheim orchestra. Mozart had formed a friendship with Ramm during a brief stay in Mannheim
en route to France in 1778. In 1780, the Elector Karl Theodore of Mannheim became Elector of the Palatinate and
consequently moved with many of his staff, including Ramm, to Munich. There, in the closing months of that year
and January and February 1781, Mozart composed the second and third acts of Idomeneo, K. 366, and supervised
its rehearsal and production. Ramm's presence in the orchestra is reflected by the beauty and craftsmanship of the
writing for his instrument in Mozart's score. That Mozart, already fully occupied with work on the opera, made
time to compose this chamber work for Ramm speaks volumes about his skills as a performer.

The oboe part is impressive, but the strings are far more than accompaniment. Detailed motivic work and
important thematic ideas enliven all of the string parts, and the shift of the leading role to a string is sometimes
used to articulate important moments in the unfolding structure—such as the statement of the secondary theme in
the exposition of the first movement. The second movement is pure lyricism, while, the third movement, a
bubbling rondo in 6/8 time, anticipates the brilliant writing in the finale of the Clarinet Concerto, K. 622. The
rhythmic independence of the oboe from the strings, especially in the episode preceding the final statement of the
rondo theme, is so extensive that we may well apply the term polymetric to this remarkable passage.

The three-movement quintet K. 386c for horn and four stringed instruments dates from Mozart's first season in
Vienna, the fall of 1782. The work, written for Joseph Ignatz Leutgeb (1732-1811), calls for one violin, two
violas, and a fourth instrument to play the bass line. That line bore the designation basso in the first edition; the
term violoncello appeared in a later edition by André. It is therefore possible that the piece may actually have been
intended for performance with double bass.10

Leutgeb was the artist who also elicited three of the four horn concertos from Mozart's pen. As a child in
Salzburg, Wolfgang knew Leutgeb, and when Mozart settled in Vienna in 1781, he was pleased to renew his
acquaintance with the horn virtuoso, who had moved there in 1777.

Mozart wrote quartets with a single wind instrument and three stringed instruments during his Salzburg years, but
his Viennese chamber music uses an ensemble of four strings and one wind. Mozart's last piece using the
combination of four strings and one wind was the Clarinet Quintet, K. 581, for Paul Anton Stadler (1753-1812),
one of the Page 59 →most interesting figures among the virtuosos of the later eighteenth century. He was born in
Bruck, the same town where Haydn was born. Paul Anton and his brother Johann began presenting clarinet
concerts in Vienna as early as 1773, and both were employed in Emperor Joseph II's wind band in 1782. Anton
was a man of vision, and he drew up a plan addressing general considerations of music education (Musik Plan of
1800). He also extended the range of the clarinet, thereby creating the so-called basset clarinet, the instrument for
which the Clarinet Quintet of 1789 and the Clarinet Concerto, K. 622 of 1791 were conceived. Unfortunately, the
original score of the quintet has not survived, and the differences between it and the version for conventional
clarinet must remain a matter of conjecture.11 In all likelihood, Mozart also had Stadler in mind when he wrote the
Quintet in E-flat for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn, K. 452.12

Mozart viewed the Clarinet Quintet as an exceptional work. It is the only example among his occasional chamber
works for winds and strings that utilizes the four-movement plan. The opening movement is a sonata; however, in
the recapitulation, Mozart transfers some passages originally assigned to the clarinet to the first violin. The
recapitulation also contains triplet subdivisions that were not present in the exposition as well as an elaboration in
the clarinet part (meas. 182-84) of a figure consisting of a trill with a Nachschlag that had appeared as a stock
cadential figure in the first violin part in measure 6 of the exposition.

The Larghetto is an elegant movement written as a duet between the clarinet and the first violin with lower strings
accompanying. It is unclear whether the indication con sordino in the score applies to all strings or excludes the
first violin. Even with muted first violin, the clarinet is capable of providing an appropriately subtle dynamic level
to balance well; however, the mute eliminates much of the brightness of the violin tone and seems to me less
satisfactory in achieving the effect of an accompanied duo. The minuet is extended by the insertion of a second
trio section, a formal plan that Beethoven later used. The finale is an Allegretto with six variations, the third of
which is in the parallel minor key.

CHAMBER MUSIC FOR WINDS ONLY: Harmoniemusik

Small ensembles of mixed wind instruments often played in the open air at social and civic functions. The
advantage of these modest wind bands consisted in their constitution by instruments that were easily portable and
Page 60 →that could produce a suitable dynamic level for the intended performance environment. Wind
ensembles commonly ranged from five to thirteen instruments. Sometimes the scorings included exotic
instruments, such as English horn and serpent, though the most typical Harmoniemusik ensemble of the later
eighteenth century consisted of pairs each of oboes, clarinets, horns, and bassoons.

Both Haydn and Mozart made significant contributions to this medium. Most of the authenticated Haydn
repertoire was composed during the 1760s, whereas Mozart's compositions generally date from the following
decade. Among the many works attributed to Haydn, standard Harmoniemusik scoring appears in Hob. II/41, 42,
43, and F7. Three other of Haydn's wind ensembles, Hob. II/44, 45, and 46, require a pair each of oboes and
horns, with three bassoons and a serpent.13 The best known of this latter group is undoubtedly Hob. II/46, which
includes the “St. Anthony Chorale” that was used by Johannes Brahms as the basis of his Variations on a Theme
of Haydn, Op. 56a and b. The St. Anthony Partita is in four movements, Allegro con spirito, Chorale St. Anthoni,
Menuetto, and Rondo-allegretto. The concluding rondo uses a thematic variant of the chorale melody heard in the
second movement. Probably the five-bar phrases of the chorale rather than the instrumentation attracted Brahms to
Haydn's melody.

Most of Mozart's music for small wind ensembles was composed during his early years in Salzburg. The
instrumentation is normally limited to pairs of oboes, horns, and bassoons, since the Salzburg court orchestra did
not include clarinets. Any of Mozart's works with a pair of clarinets is suspect: Either it was composed after the
year 1781, when Mozart moved to Vienna where clarinets would have been available, or that particular piece was
written for use outside of Salzburg. The Divertimento, K. 113, for example, was composed in 1771, but its
inclusion of a pair of clarinets reflects the fact that it was composed for use in Milan. It is also possible that works
scored with clarinet are revisions of earlier pieces that did not originally include that instrument.

Mozart's outdoors chamber music differs in one important respect from the actual chamber music compositions:
The periodic structure of the indoor music is interesting, ingenious, and often quite complex, whereas the outdoors
pieces tend to be straightforward, as is their texture.

Mozart's divertimentos for winds, more than any other of his compositions, exhibit the characteristics of the style
galant that was fashionable during the 1760s and 1770s. Mozart would have experienced the galant Page 61
→manner firsthand during his childhood sojourns to Augsburg, Leopold Mozart's birthplace and a center for the
cultivation of that midcentury style. These simple and direct structures are characteristic not only in Mozart's
scores, but in those by his contemporaries as well. It was in this repertoire that the stereotype of the light and
accessible divertimento had its origin.
Page 62 →

FOUR
The Chamber Music of Beethoven
The most important chamber works by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) are his string quartets. His earliest,
begun in 1798, eventually became the set of six string Quartets, Op. 18. His middle period quartets are the three
Razumovsky Quartets, Op. 59, the Harp Quartet, Op. 74, and the Quartetto serioso, Op. 95. The late quartets
include Opp. 127, 132, 130, 131, and 135. Along with these sixteen quartets, we possess the Grosse Fuge (grand
fugue) for string quartet, Op. 133, which was originally the finale of Op. 130.1

THE EARLY QUARTETS

Beethoven dedicated his six quartets, Op. 18, to Joseph Franz Maximilian Prince of Lobkowitz. They were
composed between 1798 and 1800. The published order of these quartets (i.e., F major, G major, D major, C
minor, A major, B-flat major) does not reflect the chronology of their composition. Beethoven commented about
the edition published by Tranquillo Mollo in 1801: He wrote to Franz Anton Hoffmeister that Mollo's edition was
“full of mistakes and errata—on a large scale and on a small scale. They swarm like little fishes in water, that is to
say, ad infinitum…. My skin is full of pricks and scratches—thanks to the beautiful edition of my Quartets.”2
Unfortunately, the autograph manuscripts of these quartets have all been lost.

The Op. 18 quartets are conservative: All are in four movements with Page 63 →fast outer movements. Sonata
form movements are conventional, as is Beethoven's inclusion of six quartets in the set. The melodic style relies
on terse motifs of the galant sort, and the principal themes are often standard ornamental figures.

The turn figure is the fundamental melodic idea in the first movement of the F-major Quartet, Op. 18, No. 1, and it
forms the basis of both the opening theme and the secondary theme. The full quartet plays this motif in unison at
the opening, but in the secondary key area, it is stated in reduced note values (i.e., diminution), and it forms the
basis of a dialogue between the outer voices. Though the quartet exhibits an unprecedented singularity in its
melodic continuity, the motivic transformations are always so ingenious that listeners hardly notice the
movement's monothematic design. Similar thematic unity can be seen in the first movement of the G-major
Quartet, Op. 18, No. 2, which also uses a typical ornamental flourish as its main theme.

Beethoven's first set of variations to appear within the context of a string quartet occurs in the Andante cantabile
of the A-major String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 5. The movement is positioned in third place following a Minuet and
trio in the principal tonality of A major. All five variations are in the subdominant, D major. These are strict
variations in which the original theme is preserved in its essentials. The theme is remarkable for its syncopations
and melodic retardations that make the metrical shape and harmonic progress somewhat confusing upon first
hearing. Phrase endings are obscured by tied values, and weak-beat cadences delay arrivals at pivotal harmonies
where these are expected. From this theme, Beethoven was able to elicit a wide range of emotions. In the first
variation, he develops the tune in imitative counterpoint. The first violin dominates, as in quatuor brillant texture,
in the second variation. The third is devoted to the lower strings, which play the tune and fragmented motifs
derived from it beneath a repeated figure in the first violin. The ostinato pattern of the first violin gives way in the
fourth variation to an essentially harmonic treatment of the melody. Chromatic alterations within secondary
dominants produce striking harmonic shifts. The filth variation is a raucous, military march reminiscent of some
eighteenth-century patriotic celebration. The march, which is the final numbered variation, leads to a sixth,
unnumbered variation that is free and figural. Presumably, Beethoven eschewed the assignment of a number for
this variation because of its structural function as a coda.

Of the twenty-four movements in Op. 18, the finale of the B-flat-major String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 6, is the most
bizarre and original. Beethoven Page 64 →gave this movement the subtitle La malinconia. He also wrote the
instruction that Questa pezzo si deve trattare colla piu gran delicatezza (This piece should be rendered with the
greatest delicacy). The harmonic idiom of this movement is intriguing. In many ways, it is Beethoven's equivalent
of Mozart's introduction to the famous Dissonance Quartet, K. 465.3

A progressive feature of this movement is the structural significance of the fully-diminished-seventh chord. The
first four measures present a peaceful series of parallel sixths in the first and second violin parts; in the next four
measures, this is echoed an octave lower by the second violin and the viola. The affection is that of absolute
tranquility; but, the tranquility is disrupted by the fully-diminished-seventh chord (m. 9). The sonority is further
emphasized by its repetition on pause chords (mm. 13 through 16). The pause chords are placed in bold relief by
dramatic alternations between piano and forte dynamics.

Beethoven's use of diminished sonorities anticipates the harmonic idiom of mature German romanticism: The
mysterious progressions in von Weber's Der Freischütz (1821) and Wagner's endless melody both depend on the
diminished-seventh chord rather than the dominant-seventh chord, and composers of the Romantic era took full
advantage of the tonal mobility that this sonority provided. Equally important is the dramatic function of this
chord. Since it consists of two interlocking tritones, it is a volatile, unstable sonority—particularly when placed in
such a grand and rhetorical manner as we find it in La malinconia. This concluding movement of Op. 18 must
have made a powerful impression on listeners of the early nineteenth century.

When we clear away the smoke and shadows from La malinconia, we find that this curious passage that begins the
finale of the quartet is actually a slow introduction to fairly tradition movement. In its closing measure, the adagio
introduction is poised (with fermata) on a dominant triad that leads without break into the Allegretto. This
“introduction” reappears several times in the course of the movement, thereby assuming structural significance.

QUARTETS OF THE MIDDLE PERIOD

Beethoven's Op. 59, generally known as the Razumovsky Quartets (1806), contains only three quartets. They were
dedicated to Count Andrei Kyrillovich Razumovsky, the representative of the Russian czar at the Habsburg court
in Vienna. As Paul Griffiths has pointed out,

Page 65 →

In the winter of 1804-05 Ignaz Shuppanzigh [sic], already thoroughly familiar to Beethoven as the
outstanding quartet leader in Vienna of his day, began to give subscription concerts of quartets, and in
1808, the year of the publication of the “Razumovsky” quartets, Shuppanzigh's ensemble was to
receive a salaried appointment to the household of Count Razumovsky [until 1814]. It was certainly
for Shuppanzigh that Beethoven wrote op. 59 (as he did all his later quartets), and in doing so he was
writing for a violinist who…was primarily a quartet player. Thus op. 59 presumes not merely
brilliance, though on occasion the three works do require that of the first violin, but also dedication
and understanding.4

Schuppanzigh's technique and refined playing would have made an impression on Count Razumovsky since he
was himself a keen quartet player.

Each of the Razumovsky Quartets is longer by a third or even a half than those of Op. 18. The first movement of
Op. 59, No. 1, the String Quartet in F major, is one of the longest sonata-form movements in all of Beethoven's
chamber music. This extraordinary length is achieved without the customary repetitions of the halves of the binary
form. Instead, passages with unstable harmonies (i.e., those passages often called “transition sections”) are
expanded. Likewise, the coda is enlisted for further development rather than being limited to the customary
confirmation of tonic harmony.

Similar expansion takes place in the third movement of the string quartet Op. 59, No. 2, the String Quartet in E
minor. In its Allegretto, we find a formal plan that was to become a favorite of Beethoven's: the double scherzo
and trio. Here Beethoven enlarges the typical tripartite form of the minuet and trio (or scherzo and trio) by adding
a repetition of the trio and a third statement of the minuet (or scherzo) da capo. In this instance, the repetition is
merited: the trio section, customarily an easygoing point of repose within a larger movement, is actually a double
fugue using a tuneful melody as the principal subject and a more active countersubject full of intricate figuration.
As the subjects and answers of both themes speed by, the listener is engulfed in scintillating, fourth-species
counterpoint that is both technically impressive and characteristic of the contrapuntal style preferred by composers
working in traditionally Roman Catholic countries.

This is an ironic bit of music, since the songlike subject is actually a Russian folk melody, one of several that
Beethoven used in the Razumovsky Quartets. Russian themes also appear in the fourth movement of the First
Razumovsky Quartet. In each movement, Beethoven points out the folk song with the designation “Theme russe.”
Contrary to Romantic lore, there is no evidence that Razumovsky taught Beethoven these melodies. He actually
took them from a collection published by Johann Gottfried Pratsch in 1790.

Page 66 → Page 67 →

Beethoven composed two additional string quartets during his middle period; these were the so-called Harp
Quartet, Op. 74, in E-flat major, and the Quartetto serioso, Op. 95, in F minor. These were written in 1809 and
1810 respectively. The nickname of the former piece stems from the fact that the first movement contains
passages for pizzicato strings playing arpeggios that suggest the sound of the harp. In the third movement,
Beethoven replaced the typical minuet/scherzo and trio with a double scherzo and trio; however, its form differs
from the Scherzo of Op. 59, No. 2 insofar as the repetitions of Op. 74 are notated in full. Beethoven extended the
final statement of the C-minor scherzo section with a forty-five-measure codetta that comes to rest the dominant
of E-flat major, the key to which we return in the final Allegretto con Variazioni movement. Beethoven indicates
an attacca in moving from the Scherzo to the closing movement.

The Quartetto serioso takes its nickname from the tempo indication of the scherzo movement, Allegro assai
vivace ma serioso. The most striking features of this quartet are the connection of movements without pause and
the use of introductions to obscure the customary four-movement plan. Departures from pattern forms within
movements are also interesting.

In the first movement of Op. 95, measures 3 through 17 contain gestures suggesting that the key of C major will
emerge as the secondary tonal area. The gestures of a movement to C are always thwarted, though, by the addition
of the tone B-flat, which forms the dominant-seventh chord of F and returns us to that key. The true secondary key
turns out to be the submediant (meas. 43ff.), an indicator of Beethoven's growing predilection for third-related
keys. This tendency to replace the tonic-dominant axis with two or more keys related by thirds became
characteristic of the nineteenth-century style in general. As in the case of the first Razumovsky Quartet, the sonata
form in the first movement of the Quartetto serioso dispenses with the clear division into binary halves with a
double-bar line. The recapitulation is also irregular insofar as measures 3 through 17—the flirtation with the key
of C—are dropped. This structural alteration to the recapitulation, coupled with the choice of minor mode, affects
the balance of the movement as a whole. Whereas sonata recapitulations traditionally affirm balance, Page 68
→this truncated reprise creates a nervousness that stands in contrast to the tranquil contrapuntal lines of the
second movement.

The double scherzo and trio also appears as the third movement in the Quartetto serioso. The F-minor scherzo
section follows the preceding Allegretto ma non troppo without break. The trio is in D major, a third-related key.
The reprise of the trio is substantially rewritten and leads to a condensed version of the opening scherzo material.

In both the Harp Quartet and the Quartetto serioso, the double scherzo and trio is significantly more complex
than that in Op. 59, No. 2. Whereas that Razumovsky Quartet simply incorporated literal repetitions of
harmonically closed material, both of these latter quartets employ true, five-section designs.

A similar modification of the traditional balance of components can be seen in the sonata-form finale of Op. 95.
There is no central development section in this sonata; however, harmonic, thematic, and rhythmic development is
not abandoned, but merely transferred to the coda.
 The phenomenon that has occurred here is an actual fusion of the recapitulation and development
sections, for part two contains both, as in the normal sonata form, but delays the development,
inserting it in the middle of the recapitulation. Looked at another way, the form is a mixture of the
sonatina and the sonata forms. Like the sonatina, part two begins with the restatement of part one. Yet
it does not give up the sonata form's development section. For this reason the scheme is sometimes
referred to as the “enlarged sonatina.”5

Other remarkable features of the finale include the transformation of motifs drawn from the scherzo movement in
the introductory Larghetto espressivo as well as the whimsical coda (Allegro-molto leggieramente) in which the
seriousness of all the preceding movement is forgotten in a vigorous flurry of activity in the tonic major. This final
change of mode from minor to major is suggested in the opening two measures of the first movement, where the
strings arrive at the tone F as the goal of the ascending melodic-minor scale.6

The formal flexibility of the Quartetto serioso must be viewed within the context of the standards that had been
established for the string quartet as a genre during the course of the Classical era. The quartet contains sonata-
form movements, scherzos and trios, and, indeed, the typical four-movement plan. At the same time, the work is
representative of Beethoven's middle period masterpieces in that constructive means are applied to new
ends—ends that are decidedly un-Classical in character.

Page 69 →

THE LATE QUARTETS

In 1822, Beethoven began testing the commercial market for string quartets by an offer to the Leipzig publisher C.
F. Peters for a new quartet, after almost a dozen years of silence in that genre.7 By chance, Beethoven received a
commission shortly afterward for “one, two, or three new quartets” from Prince Nicholay Borisovich Galitzin, an
amateur cellist who played in a string quartet in St. Petersburg. Beethoven did not get to work on the commission
until two years later.

The period between 1822 and 1824 was one of great productivity: Beethoven completed both the Missa solemnis
and the Ninth Symphony. Then, in 1824 and 1825, he composed three monumental quartets in rapid succession.
The three quartets that Beethoven wrote for and dedicated to Galitzin were Opp. 127, 132, and 130. The Quartet in
E-flat, Op. 127, was composed between May 1824 and February 1825; the completion of the Quartet in A minor,
Op. 132, followed in July; the third, the Quartet in B-flat, Op. 130, occupied the composer from August to
November.8 Op. 127 was published by B. Schott's Söhne (Mainz) in 1826; it was the last of Beethoven's
compositions to be published during his lifetime. In 1827, Schlesinger (Berlin and Paris) issued Op. 132, and
Artaria printed Op. 130.9 The original finale of Op. 130 was not to Artaria's liking; thus, they asked Beethoven for
a new one. Artaria issued the original finale as the Grosse Fuge, Op. 133. Beethoven supplied a new finale for Op.
130; this movement was his last completed composition.

The remaining quartets, Opp. 131 and 135, were issued by Schott and Schlesinger respectively. We should point
out that in 1825 Schlesinger had hoped to print both Op. 132 and Op. 130. Beethoven's decision to give the Op.
130 quartet to Artaria apparently caused Schlesinger some consternation. In the hopes of setting this situation
right, Beethoven wrote the F-major Quartet, Op. 135, which Schlesinger published in 1827.

The preceding information should clarify the chronology of Beethoven's late quartets, but more significantly, the
fact that the composer was writing these pieces with practical considerations in mind. His letter of inquiry of 1822
to Peters, the subsequent commission from Prince Galitzin, his willingness to remove entire movements and
replace them with new music, and his dealings with various publishing houses all confirm that he intended these
pieces to appeal to a broad audience. Beethoven took equal pains with the final step in presenting these quartets to
the world: their premieres.

Page 70 →

Beethoven was concerned about the public's reception of his new quartets. In an appeal to the members of the
ensemble entrusted with the premiere of the Quartet in E-flat, Op. 127, Beethoven wrote:

Best Ones!

Each one is herewith given his part and is bound by oath and indeed pledged on his honor to do his
best, to distinguish himself and to vie each with the other in excellence.

Each one who takes part in the affair in question is to sign this sheet.

>Beethoven

Schuppanzigh

Weiß

Linke

The grand master's accursed violoncello.

Holz

The last, but only in signing. Schindler secretarius10

The premiere by Schuppanzigh went poorly; accordingly, Beethoven asked Joseph Böhm, who led another
professional quartet in Vienna, to give the “official” premiere of the piece. Böhm wrote the following account of
the incident:

The affair did not come off well. Schuppanzigh, who played first violin, was weary from much
rehearsing, there was no finish in the performance, the quartet did not appeal to him, he was not well
disposed towards the performance and the quartet did not please. Few were moved; it was a weak
succes d'estime.

When Beethoven learned of this—for he was not present at the performance—he became furious and
let both performers and the public in for some harsh words. Beethoven could have no peace until the
disgrace was wiped off. He sent for me first thing in the morning—In his usual curt way, he said to
me. “You must play my quartet”—and the thing was settled.—Neither objections nor doubts could
prevail; what Beethoven wanted had to take place, so I undertook the difficult task.—It was studied
industriously and rehearsed frequently under Beethoven's own eyes: I said Beethoven's eyes
intentionally, for the unhappy man was so deaf that he could no longer hear the heavenly sound of his
compositions. And yet rehearsing in his presence was not easy. With close attention his eyes followed
the bows and therefore he was able to judge the smallest fluctuations in tempo or rhythm and correct
them immediately. At the close of the last movement of this quartet there occurred a meno vivace,
Page 71 →which seemed to me to weaken the general effect. At the rehearsal, therefore, I advised
that the original tempo be maintained, which was done, to the betterment of the effect.

Beethoven, crouched in a corner, heard nothing, but watched with strained attention. After the last
stroke of the bows he said, laconically, “Let it remain so,” went to the desks and crossed out the meno
vivace in the four parts.11

FORMAL ASPECTS OF THE LATE QUARTETS

The figure of Beethoven looms great in the history of music. In particular, the aura that musicologists have painted
around these late chamber works may lead some to believe that this music is incomprehensible, save to an elite
few; but the several documents cited here indicate that this is not the general impression that the composer
intended; nevertheless, they do make unprecedented challenges to the listeners and performers alike. Difficulties
arise in conjunction with formal orientation because the four-movement plan is either drastically modified or
abandoned altogether. Similarly, the formal construction within individual movements is linked only in the most
tenuous way with the pattern forms of earlier literature. Tonal relationships among movements exhibit greater
variety, and frequent tempo changes within the various movements obscure formal boundaries of movements. In
Op. 131, the composer indicates seven consecutive “numbers” into which he casts his highly dramatic music. The
design of this quartet, coupled with its highly charged emotion, suggests an affiliation with the operatic stage.

Though it would be tempting to devote the remainder of this chapter to an examination of each of the five late
Beethoven quartets, the ensuing discussion will be confined to the Quartet in A minor, Op. 132, one of
Beethoven's most deeply felt compositions. Its sincerity and profundity have touched the creative spirits of
numerous artists since its composition. In his novel Point Counter Point, Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) uses this
movement as an image to represent all that is good. Huxley wrote this novel in 1928 during the heyday of Benito
Mussolini's dictatorship. In chapter 37 of the novel, the central movement of the quartet (a hymn of acceptance
and praise in the Lydian mode) becomes the focal point of a lengthy and detailed discussion between two
important characters.12

In similar fashion to Huxley's novel, the central movement of Béla Bartók's Third Piano Concerto takes this same
movement, the Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, as its model.13 Not only the spiritual Page
72 →character and tone of Beethoven's movement, but also its formal and structural features are taken over in
Bartók's concerto.

The serenely intense beauty of Beethoven's Dankgesang is undeniable; however, the impression created by the
movement depends upon its placement within the five-movement quartet as a whole. The time span of this quartet
is similar to that of the three Razumovsky Quartets—about double the length of one of the Op. 18 quartets.

A slow passage (Assai sostenuto) introduces the first movement (Allegro); an expanded scherzo-trio (Allegro ma
non tanto) follows here as the second movement; the Dankgesang acts as the slow movement; and a march (Alla
Marcia, assai vivace), in fourth place, gives way to dramatic transitional passages that introduce the intense finale
(Allegro appassionato). The added movement in this case accounts for rather little of the piece as a whole. Really,
the expansion takes place within the context of the four conventional movements.

In the first movement, Beethoven's introduction is derived from a germinal motif consisting of four tones: G-
sharp, A, F, E. The intervals that these tones form in their first statement in the cello are an ascending half-step,
the upward leap of a minor sixth, and a descending half-step, but subsequent intervallic configurations change
constantly in compositional permutations like transposition, inversion, fragmentation, and so on. This same motif
appears in two other quartets, Opp. 130 and 131. Joseph Kerman makes the following remarks about the
significance of the pervasiveness of this motif.

There is a persistent conception or misconception about the late quartets which derives some small
support from the chronology of composition, and which turns up in one form or another in almost all
the literature. This is the view of the three middle quartets (in A minor, Bb and C# minor) as a
specially unified group. For the fact is that one thematic configuration, stated most simply at the
beginning of the A-minor Quartet as G#-A-F-E, occurs prominently in all three. The configuration
dominates the Great Fugue; and it follows that critics who make the most of this view of the late
quartets tend also to be partisans of the Great Fugue, which they prefer as the finale of the Quartet in
Bb over the piece later substituted for it.

The thematic parallels among the quartets are quite unmistakable. The question is what to make of
them (the familiar crux of analysis and criticism—what æsthetic sense to make out of observed or
“analyzed” fact). Is there an interrelationship among the three works on an actual Page 73 →level of
æsthetic response? This seems to me the very heart of the matter, but it is not something that most
writers on the late quartets treat at all squarely.
In the closing paragraph of his discussion, Kerman concludes:

As for the “threads” crossing lines of demarcation, their meaning seems to me no greater than that of
parallels that can be drawn among Beethoven's compositions at any period. Such parallels have been
drawn very many times in the course of this study; as didactic aids they help focus on the individual
qualities of the works under consideration. But in themselves the “threads” contribute nothing to the
æsthetic weave. Granted also that the “style of the late quartets” has a certain synoptic beauty of its
own, and that an appreciation of this is even necessary as a context for response to the individual
members. So it is with the “Razumovsky” Quartets and the neighboring compositions of 1803-6. But
once again, this is a different and (crucially) a more abstract matter than the direct æsthetic experience
of particular works of art. It is not enough to allow the late quartets “a certain ‘wholeness’ ”; each of
them provides us with a separate paradigm for wholeness. What truer criterion could be found for
individuality in works of art is hard to know.14

The thematic links among these quartets do not compel us to understand them as a “trilogy.” We have seen the
care that Beethoven devoted to the publication and first performances of his final works. If, indeed, these quartets
were planned as a cycle, then Beethoven would have stated that specifically.

The four-note constellation of pitches that Beethoven works over in these late compositions is admittedly
fascinating. The tones of the germinal motif in Op. 132 form the second four-note segment of the harmonic minor
scale. In stepwise order, E, F, G-sharp, A, they produce pairs of ascending half-steps separated by an augmented
step (enharmonically, a minor third). The pairs of half steps play an important role in the themes of the first key
area of the sonata. Taken in a different sequence, the four tones produce a pair of major thirds (E, G-sharp, and F,
A). One of the unusual features of this sonata is the fact that its secondary key area (meas. 48ff.) is F major,
related, of course, by a major third to the central tonality of A. Whereas the first theme was rich in half-step
motion and minor thirds, the secondary theme is concerned with major thirds and diatonic whole-steps; however,
Beethoven maintains a close relationship with the germinal motif in spite of the bold contrasts of mood, key, and
musical Page 74 →character. The concern with the four pitches E, F, G (natural in this case), and A continues.
The cello part in measure 57 and later the first violin part in measure 58 contain a new permutation of the original
idea.

Though the source of Beethoven's pitch content in this movement is, as we have shown, the second four-note
segment of the harmonic-minor scale, the intervals that Beethoven uses in stating these four tones in the opening
cello line are an ascending half-step, an upward leap of a minor sixth, and a descending half-step (G-sharp, A, F,
E). This ordering of tones is a permutation of the harmonic-minor segment. As we study this segment, we begin to
discover, as Beethoven did, hundreds of motivic variants. The germinal cell multiplies geometrically, it seems,
and we find a sort of thematic transformation that anticipates the compositional style of César Franck.

Closely aligned with the intervallic features of this eight-measure opening is the dynamic design. The only
specified dynamic—and that twelve times—is pianissimo. Crescendo instructions appear in the closing two
measures of the Assai sostenuto in the transition to the Allegro tempo and forte dynamic. The reappearance of the
pianissimo dynamic in the course of the movement establishes a link with the introduction. In some cases,
references to the introduction are more easily recognized by the return of the dynamic level than by motivic
content.

The scherzo appears in Op. 132 as the second movement. Its thematic connection with the first movement is made
clear within the first two measures, where we find the pair of half steps again, but separated in this case by a major
third (i.e., A to C-sharp), the inversion of the minor sixth that had split the pair of half steps in the first movement.
The trio section of this movement is one of the most charming that Beethoven ever wrote in any medium. The
main theme is put forth by the first violin doubled at the tenth in the second violin against a drone on the tone A.
The drone later migrates to the viola and cello parts. The sounds suggest the pastoral bagpipe music that became
so popular during the reigns of Louis XIV and XV, and in the pastorale idioms of the style galant.

The third movement (Molto adagio) of this quartet is one of the best-known movements in all of the chamber
music literature. It was this movement, the Heiliger Dankgesang, that sparked Huxley's imagination and Bartók's
too. In part, the fascination with the movement results from familiarity with biographical details of Beethoven's
life. At the time of composition, the composer was in a state of turmoil owing to the suicide attempt of his
nephew, Karl, of whom Beethoven had custody at the time. Beethoven was also terminally ill with liver and
stomach ailments.

In no other music do we so clearly see Beethoven in the tradition of Viennese Page 75 →Roman Catholicism. The
movement is identified as a song of thanksgiving “to the Godhead.” The use of the Lydian mode as the basis of
the opening contrapuntal melodies is a deliberate abstraction; it is consciously archaic.

In striking contrast to the Lydian polyphony of the first thirty measures is the diatonic D-major scale that
dominates the section with the designation Neue Kraft fühlend (feeling new strength). The movement contains five
sections in all, each, in alternation, is a variant of the Lydian and D-major materials respectively.

In the case of Op. 132, the march is the added movement. By the time Beethoven composed the Op. 132 quartet,
the Viennese march was essentially an easygoing affair for regimental bandmasters. Even during the height of the
Classical era, the march was a standard element in the cassation and the divertimento. In his chamber music,
Beethoven's marches tend to be of this genial, Viennese type. The march in Op. 132 is in a straightforward binary
form. With each half repeated, the movement remains a modest affair of only forty-eight measures. The second
half proceeds without break into the Più allegro and Presto sections that are actually introductory to the fifth and
final movement. In the penultimate measure of the march (meas. 23), the germinal motif reappears; in this case,
the pitches are E, F-sharp, G-sharp, A. The four-note segment of the harmonic minor scale (E, F, G-sharp, A)
plays an important role as a cyclic theme in the finale. The motif first appears in the last movement in the first
violin part in measures 20 and 21 of the introduction.15 Less obvious than this unaccompanied statement of the
motif is the absolute barrage of permutations that appears in measures 105 to 111; the first violin part in measures
105 and 106 even contains the motif in its original form (i.e., G-sharp, A, F, E). Not only does Beethoven
reproduce the exact pitch pattern of the motif that we heard in the first movement, but he reproduces the
pianissimo dynamic as well.

A striking moment in the finale is the reference to the Heiliger Dankgesang in measure 265 and following. The
pianissimo dynamic, the quarter-note motion, the strict, contrapuntal style, and the motivic structure of the
Dankgesang are recalled in a most astounding manner. The subject of the finale is an inverted form of that
appearing at the opening of the Dankgesang, but this is not the only “inversion” that takes place; comparison of
the parallel passages in each movement shows that the order of entries is also inverted. (First violin descending
through the successive instruments to the cello in the Dankgesang becomes cello ascending through first violin in
the finale.)

Page 76 →

The relationship between the third and fifth movements is unmistakable. Equally clear is the fact that Beethoven
had intended a symmetrical design for the entire quartet. In comparing the first and fifth movements, we find
concordances of thematic material, dynamic structure, contrapuntal textures, and so forth. At the same time, the
third movement presents an extended contrast to the outer movements.

The innovative aspects of the finale are balanced by Beethoven's use of traditional rondo form for that movement.
The rondo refrain returns in measures 112, 186, and 302. The first episode (meas. 73-111) returns in modified
form (meas. 230-65). The central section (meas. 145-85) is the axis of the rondo. The refrain always returns to the
tonic, but it is never exactly the same as in its first appearance; thus, the varied reprises produce a rondo-variation
form.

BEETHOVEN AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE PIANO TRIO AS A GENRE

Though the string quartets form the most formidable and voluminous portion of Beethoven's chamber music
(approximately seventy published movements), he chose to make his formal debut as a composer with the three
Piano Trios, Op. 1, published in 1795. In them, Beethoven uses the standard scoring of violin, piano, and cello;
however, other works from roughly the same time often contain alternate instruments.16 Among the more
important alternative scorings, we should note Mozart's Kegelstatt Trio in E-flat, K. 498, for clarinet, viola, and
piano, and Beethoven's Trio, Op. 11, for clarinet, cello, and piano.

In early piano trios, the keyboard was featured; the violin part—often devised by the performer ad libitum—was
generated by the right-hand keyboard part; and the cello doubled the bass line of the keyboard in the old-
fashioned, basso continuo style. Attempts at a more substantial collaboration among the three players were
particularly difficult in this genre, however, owing to the widely differing timbres of the individual instruments.

The secondary role of the strings is apparent in Mozart's first chamber work for piano trio, K. 254, which was
composed in Salzburg in 1776. He designated this three-movement piece as a “divertimento.” Mozart did not use
this instrumental combination again until ten years later, when he composed the Piano Trio in G major, K. 496,
and another in B-flat-major, K. 502. His remaining trios, K. 542 in E-flat major, K. 548 in C major, and K. 564 in
G major, date from 1788. These later works were given the designation “terzett” rather than divertimento.

Page 77 →

Most of Haydn's piano trios—approximately forty-five in number—also date from the 1780s and 1790s. The
increased importance of the genre late in the careers of Haydn and Mozart, and Beethoven's treatment of it in Op.
1, suggest that this medium was essentially a product of the late Classical period. Indeed, the most important
chamber music for piano trio—such as Beethoven's Archduke Trio and the trios of Schubert and
Mendelssohn—are early examples of romanticism.

The number and sequence of movements in the piano trio of the late eighteenth century were variable. Two-and
three-movement trios appear regularly in the works of Haydn and Mozart. The four-movement plan does not
appear in Mozart's trios; it is rare in Haydn's (Hob. XV/41, for example).

The formal designs of movements in piano trios of the late Classical era were largely those same pattern forms
encountered in compositions for solo keyboard or string quartet, specifically, sonatas, minuets and trios, themes
with variations, and rondos. In general, the treatment of these forms in trios written before approximately 1780
tended to be less complex than the same patterns in the contemporaneous string quartets. Whereas variations and
minuets were generally restricted to inner-movement status in the string quartet, piano trios admitted opening
movements in variation form—such as Haydn's D-major Trio, Hob. XV/7, and concluding minuets—for example,
Hob. XV/6 (1784) and Hob. XV/8 (1785). Furthermore, the technical demands upon the performers were held in
check.

K. 502 is Mozart's first composition for this medium that begins to take in hand the distinctive characteristics of
each instrument. Concertato writing is prominent throughout the piece, and the last of its three movements
employs counterpoint to a considerable extent.

Just as the style of Mozart's ensemble sonatas did not reveal a continuous, chronological evolution, his piano trios
likewise show returns to the older, more simple textures in which violin and cello play secondary roles. In fact, A.
Hyatt King concluded that the last two trios show a disappointing decline of the standard of their predecessors.17
Another scholar, at pains to explain this evolutionary embarrassment in the case of K. 548, suggests that in the
piece, “Mozart denies himself any personal expression…. It clearly identifies itself as chamber music for the
amateur.”18 Regarding the Trio, K. 564, Einstein states unequivocally that it “was conceived purely as a piano
sonata,” which, he says, was “obviously intended for beginners.”19 An analogous case of movements from solo
keyboard sonatas being revised as a trio can be found in Haydn's F-major Trio, Hob. XV/39.

The straightforward style of the string parts in piano trios of the late eighteenth century accounts to a great extent
for their neglect in contemporary Page 78 →concert life. “Professional cellists and violinists tend to regard the
performance of a Haydn trio as an insult to their talents, while amateurs often consider it (mistakenly) as not
ambitious enough.”20
The composer primarily responsible for transforming the ensemble sonata into a distinguished medium was
Beethoven, who published eight compositions for piano trio ensemble during his career. These works were the
three Trios, Op. 1, issued by the firm of Artaria in 1795; the set of fourteen Variations on an Original Theme, Op.
44, which were sketched in the years 1791-92, completed by 1800, and published by Hoffmeister and Kühnel
(later C. F. Peters) in 1804; the two Trios of Op. 70, which were composed in 1808 and published by Breitkopf
und Härtel in 1809; the single Trio, Op. 97, known as the Archduke Trio, which was sketched during 1810-11 and
published by Steiner in 1816; and the Variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu,” a song from Wenzel Müller's
comic opera Die Schwestern von Prag (1794). In 1824, Steiner published the Variations as Op. 121a.

Though published last, the Variations, Op. 121a, were probably Beethoven's earliest work for piano trio, perhaps
dating from 1794, when Müller's opera first appeared on the stage. The eleven variations in the piece present a
mixed collection of serious and light, accessible and complex music. Beethoven begins with a variation of the
theme—an ominous bit of work in the minor mode. After several more minor-mode variations, the familiar tune
finally emerges in the major mode, cheerful and in keeping with the general tone of accompanied sonata literature.
The major mode statement of the theme is followed by a variation for violin solo with piano, and that by one for
cello and piano. The remaining variations are remarkable for their use of imitative counterpoint and frequent
fluctuations from major to minor mode. The ninth variation (adagio) already suggests some of the more intense
writing that appears in the Op. 1 Trios. The finale, a galloping, hunting-style variation, brings the set to an
ebullient conclusion.

Beethoven's conception of the piano trio was essentially different from either Haydn's or Mozart's. This is
apparent in several of the variations on “Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu,” but it is clear throughout the Trios of Op.
1. Beethoven viewed the piano trio “as a substantial piece of music requiring the balance of four movements, like
a string quartet or a symphony.”21 At the premiere of these trios, Haydn was puzzled by Beethoven's treatment of
the genre. The following account by Ferdinand Ries, a pupil of Beethoven's between 1801 and 1805, explains.

Page 79 →

Beethoven's three Trios, Op. 1, were to be introduced to the musical world at a soirée at Prince
Lichnowsky's. Most of Vienna's artists and music lovers had been invited, in particular Haydn, whose
verdict all were eager to hear. The trios were played and at once made an extraordinary impression.
Haydn, too, said many fine things about them, but advised Beethoven not to publish the third one, in
C minor. This surprised Beethoven greatly, for he thought it the best, and, in fact, to this day it is the
one which always makes the greatest impression. Haydn's remark, therefore, made a bad impression
on Beethoven, and left implanted in his mind the idea that Haydn was envious and jealous and wished
him ill. I must admit that when Beethoven told me the story I did not put much faith in it. So I took
occasion to ask Haydn himself about it. His answer, however, confirmed what Beethoven had said,
for he told me he had not imagined that the trio would be so rapidly and easily grasped, and so
favorably taken up by the public.22

In spite of Haydn's advice, Beethoven included the controversial Trio in C minor in the publication of Op. 1.

The scherzo is used in the first two trios in the set, and the minuet only in the last of the three. The tonal
arrangement of movements within each trio is generally conservative; however, the second movement of the G-
major Trio (Largo con espressione) is in the key of E major. Though Beethoven used third-related keys regularly,
they were decidedly uncommon in the scores of the 1790s save in the case of shifts in tonal focus from major to
relative minor or the reverse. Just such a shift can be seen in the C-minor Trio in which the slow set of five
variations (Andante cantabile con variazioni) is in the key of E-flat. Variations of the Classical era were typically
unified by a consistent tonality but included an excursion into the parallel mode. In this case, the fourth variation
ventures into E-flat minor—at the time, an exotic key to be sure. The second Trio is the single one in this set to
include a slow introduction (Adagio).

The relationship of instruments in Beethoven's trios is novel. Violin and cello generally do not double keyboard
voices. Instead, a concerto-like contrast dominates the writing. The strings very often function as a unit, and are
set against the piano in call-and-response gestures. At other times, they provide the main motivic ideas while the
piano functions as accompaniment or vice versa. Occasionally, the whole ensemble joins in unison statements in
order to achieve a bold, orchestral effect. Such unison passages abound in the finale (Prestissimo) of the C-minor
Trio, Op. 1, No. 3, as well as in the opening movement (Allegro vivace e con brio) of the D-major Page 80 →Trio,
Op. 70, No. 1. This latter is generally known by its nickname, the Ghost, because its second movement (Largo
assai e espressivo) makes extensive use of murky bass figuration and fully diminished sonorities. Indeed, one
would be hard pressed to find a piece before Weber's overture to Der Freischütz that utilizes the diminished
sonority so extensively and expressively as Beethoven does in this movement. The Ghost Trio is Beethoven's only
piano trio in three movements. The Trio in E-flat major returns to Beethoven's conventional four-movement
scheme, but its second movement (Allegretto) constantly fluctuates between C major and C minor, and moves
among third-related keys. The chain of third-related tonalities continues in the third movement (Allegretto ma non
troppo), which is in A-flat major. Though Haydn and Mozart typically had only a single movement in a secondary
key area, Beethoven here has two.

The Trio in E-flat contains striking features of its own. The first movement begins with a slow passage (Poco
sostenuto) based on a subject treated in imitation. The cello leads, is imitated by the violin, and then the subject
appears in the piano. The subject actually falls into two brief segments. The first segment consists of a falling third
beginning on the tonic. The second segment begins on the supertonic, falls through a fifth to the dominant, and
then ascends by step to return to the tonic. When the two segments appear in the piano part, however, they are not
heard in succession, but simultaneously with the falling-third motif forming the right-hand part and the falling
fifth constituting the left-hand part. The sonata form that follows the introduction includes a reprise of the
introductory material as the coda, but the repetition is not literal. The order of entries has been reversed so that the
piano leads; furthermore, the two segments of the motif are now successive rather than simultaneous.

Similar intricacies permeate the piece, but the finale is one of Beethoven's most complex movements. Formally, it
suggests a synthesis of sonata and rondo procedures. Stylistically, the rapid changeover of themes, harmonies,
textures, dynamics, and phrase lengths all recall the Empfindsamer compositions of Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach
(1714-1788), whose music Beethoven is known to have admired. The likelihood of Bach's influence is confirmed
by the fact that when Beethoven was assembling instructional materials for Archduke Rudolph, he included
selections from C. P. E. Bach's Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments.23 Beethoven was
compiling these theoretical items at precisely the same time that he was composing the Op. 70 Trios.24

The archduke became a pupil of Beethoven's sometime late in 1803 or Page 81 →early in 1804. In 1809, Rudolph
joined with Prince Lobkowitz and Prince Kinsky in granting to Beethoven a fixed stipend of 4,000 florins per year
so that “the necessaries of life shall not cause him embarrassment or clog his powerful genius.”25 The list of
Beethoven's works written for Rudolph includes the Triple Concerto, Op. 56 (which uses a piano trio for its solo
ensemble), the Les adieux Sonata, Op. 81a, the Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 96, the Missa solemnis, Op. 122,
the Archduke Trio, Op. 97, and the Piano Sonata, Op. 111.

The Archduke Trio is one of Beethoven's more formal works. It consists of the customary four movements. The
first, in sonata form, opens with a bold, almost orchestral theme in B-flat major and proceeds with a third-related
secondary theme in the key of G major. The recapitulation is substantially rewritten, but the most curious feature
about it is the transformation of the broad opening theme into a glittering, delicate affair marked dolce. The
second movement is a lively scherzo, but the movement has many unexpected harmonic twists, and the customary
da capo is abandoned in favor of fully-notated and varied restatement. The third movement (Andante cantabile ma
però con moto) moves to another third-related key, D major. The movement consists of a theme and five
variations, each in a more complex rhythmic setting. The first variation introduces triplet subdivision of the
quarter-note theme; the second variation moves in sixteenth notes; the third in alternating duplets and triplets with
frequent ties to confuse the issue; the fourth (Poco più adagio) in thirty-second notes; and the final variation back
in the original tempo and quarter-note motion of the theme. The movement leads without break into the finale
(Allegro moderato).

BEETHOVEN AT THE END OF AN ERA

Beethoven was, at once, the last great composer of the Classical era and the first great composer of the Romantic
era. His debt to the Classical style is most clearly seen in his use of pattern forms and traditional genres. What
made Beethoven's music unique was the idiosyncratic manner in which he used ordinary formal designs and the
intensity of the message that he uttered through these conventional vehicles. The genres in which Beethoven
expressed his musical genius were also conventional: symphonies, concertos, solo and ensemble sonatas, piano
trios, and string quartets were clearly prevalent; but the application of the genres by Beethoven was distinctive.
Though vestiges of Classicism remain, the number and sequence of movements are often unorthodox. Quartets of
the late period exceed the four-movement Page 82 →norm; piano trios are elevated on a par with four-movement
string quartets; and demands upon the performer—both technical and musical—are far beyond those encountered
in music for the bourgeoisie.

As an individual, too, Beethoven left the restraint of Classicism behind. His acquaintances were noble gentlemen
and ladies. If he deemed them worthy, some—like Lichnowsky, Kinsky, and Rudolf—were admitted to
Beethoven's circle of friends. Finally, the ongoing, personal tragedy of his life made it inevitable that his music
should reflect his anger, frustration, resolve, resignation, and serenity. Beethoven's musical genius necessarily
ruptured the boundaries of polite, late eighteenth-century society.
Page 83 →

FIVE
The Emergence of the Wind Quintet
The combination of pairs of oboes, horns, and bassoons to form a wind sextet was common enough during the
Classical era. When the clarinet arrived upon the scene, the sextet was expanded to the traditional eight-instrument
assembly associated with Harmoniemusik. Pairs of flutes, basset horns, and other wind instruments were often
added to the ensemble, particularly in later repertoire. These wind bands were maintained by wealthy courts “for
performing serenades and divertimenti during dinner or as a background to conversation.” In general, the music
for these ensembles went under the designation partita. Furthermore, the repertoire often “included transcriptions
of operas.”1 This music was casual stuff intended for ease of execution and comprehension. Neither Mozart nor
Beethoven escaped such corruption of their works; excerpts from Mozart's Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem
Serail, and Beethoven's well-known rescue opera, Fidelio, were widely circulated even during the composers'
lifetimes.

The instrumentation of Harmoniemusik betrayed its origins: It was simply the wind section of an orchestral
ensemble. Both the character of the repertoire and the constitution of the wind ensemble belied the simple fact that
Harmoniemusik really stood apart from the mainstream of chamber music literature.

The first composer who sought to elevate wind-ensemble music to the level that had been achieved in the string
quartet literature of the eighteenth century was Giuseppe Maria Gioacchino Cambini (1746-1825), whose set of
Trois quintetti, Livre 1, was published by Sieber in Paris in the year 1802. Cambini was a violinist, and he was
well acquainted with serious chamber Page 84 →music for strings. After relocating in Paris in the 1770s, he wrote
hundreds of string quartets, quintets, and chamber works for other combinations of instruments. His wind quintets
show him as a virtuosic composer capable not only of interesting ideas, but of highly idiomatic ones as well.

Cambini's first step in the transformation of music for winds—and perhaps the most important one—was to
eliminate the pairings of identical instruments that had been and remains customary in orchestral writing. The
wind ensemble that resulted consisted of solo flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon. None of these instruments
was new; nevertheless, their construction changed significantly during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries.

CONSTRUCTION OF WIND INSTRUMENTS IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY

FRANCE
To an extent, Cambini's achievements in wind quintet writing were the result of a united effort by many people.
Solo winds had generally not been practical before Cambini's time. Problems in construction resulted in
difficulties with intonation, dynamic control, and nuance. These deficiencies became the focus of instrument
builders' attention in the early stages of the Romantic era, largely because of the more complex harmonic idiom
that contemporaneous scores required. As Anthony Baines informs us,

Nineteenth-century woodwind history is an action story of brilliant, dominating

individuals—performers or craftsmen, sometimes both—and of their patented inventions through
which the elegantly simple instruments of the past were transformed into the complicated tools of the
woodwind section today.

First there came a period of some twenty-five years which saw the development of the basic “simple
systems.” With these, each instrument came to be provided with a set of simple closed keys following
the example already set by the later eighteenth-century flute-makers. These gave an accurately-tuned
keyed note for every semitone that had previously been unsatisfactory as a cross-fingering. Ten years
after the Eroica, Beethoven's Seventh and Eighth Symphonies would have been introduced with
 eight-keyed flutes and eight-to twelve-keyed clarinets. Oboes and bassoons, on which chromatic
cross-fingerings on the whole worked the best, were still mainly classical in design, but another ten
years later, when the Ninth Symphony was produced [i.e., 1824], these instruments too had become
available with extra keys.

Page 85 →

Baines cites some of the most important instrument builders active during the early part of the nineteenth century
and refers to

“new inventions” [such as]…[Jospeh] Sellner's full simple-system oboe (newly introduced by the
maker [Stefan] Koch in Vienna), the [Iwan] Müller clarinet (first devised in about 1810, in Paris),
and…[Carl] Almenraeder's newly remodelled bassoon.2

We know, too, that Anton Joseph Hampel (ca. 1710-1771) had devised a method of hand stopping that enabled the
player to produce tones that were not otherwise possible on the natural horn. Equally important was his use of
crooks, which were extensions of the horn's tubing inserted into the body of the instrument rather that at the
mouthpiece; this was the so-called Inventionshorn. By 1815, builders had developed the valved horn, the
instrument used for most of the literature discussed in this chapter.

Paris was the center for the cultivation of improved or new wind instruments. One figure in particular, Bernard
Sarrette, played a crucial role in this development. As a young officer in the National Guard in post-Revolutionary
France, he organized National Guard bands. Sarrette's bands were significantly larger than older French military
bands, “sometimes more than forty-five players strong.”3 In 1793, Sarrette founded a training school that two
years later became the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique.

The wind and brass [instruments], previously associated with the monarch, were now publicly
extolling the government of the people…. They were at times…reinforced by newly constructed
instruments modelled after depictions from Ancient Rome: the buccin, a kind of straight trumpet, and
the lower-pitched tuba curva, said to make the sound of six serpents.4

In this atmosphere, Charles-Joseph Sax (1791-1865) and his son Adolphe (1814-1894) made their improved
flutes, clarinets, and bassoons. During the 1840s, Adophe developed new instruments like the saxhorns,
saxtrombas, and saxophones, and by 1845, he had established a hefty market supplying instruments for the French
military bands.

Cambini's quintets were untimely; had they been written several decades later, they would have marked the
beginning of a burgeoning literature for the wind quintet. The three pieces, intended as a set with the first in B
major, the second in D minor, and the third in F major, contain three movements in the tempo sequence fast-slow-
fast. The first and third Page 86 →quintets conclude with rondos. Each one is written with exquisite
craftsmanship, and more frequent performances of them would be welcome.5

With the reconstituted and improved ensemble of five solo winds, the demands upon the individual players were
increased. Though advances in design and construction facilitated, skilled soloists were, nevertheless, required on
each of the five parts.

The composers primarily responsible for the establishment of the wind quintet as a standard ensemble in the early
nineteenth century were Anton Reicha (1770-1836) and Franz Danzi (1763-1826).6

ANTON REICHA
Anton Reicha was the first composer who achieved popular acclaim with his wind quintets. He was born in the
same year as Beethoven. Though a Czech, he relocated in Wallersen, in the Swabian region of Germany, so that
he could study with his uncle Joseph Reicha. When Joseph was engaged as a cellist in Maximilian's court at Bonn,
Anton went along and played second flute in the orchestra. In 1785, Reicha met Beethoven, who played the violin
in the same ensemble. The two became fast friends, and Reicha remarked that during the fourteen years they spent
together in Bonn, they were “united in a bond like that of Orestes and Pylades, and were continually side by
side…. After a separation of eight years we saw each other again in Vienna, and exchanged confidences
concerning our experiences.”7 Throughout his career, Reicha held Beethoven in high esteem.

Reicha resided in various cities in Germany and Austria, relocating frequently owing to the turmoil caused by the
Napoleonic wars. In the course of his travels, Reicha chanced to meet many of Europe's leading musicians,
including Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, Antonio Salieri, and Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, who offered him
a position as Kapellmeister (which Reicha declined). From 1818 until his death, Reicha was professor of
counterpoint at the Paris Conservatory, were his students included George Onslow, Hector Berlioz, Adolphe
Adam, Jean-Georges Kastner, Franz Liszt, and César Franck.

Among his acquaintances Reicha counted a wide variety of outstanding performers: the flautist Joseph Guillou,
the oboist August-Gustave Vogt, the clarinettist Jacques-Jules Bouffil, the hornist Louis-François Dauprat, and the
bassoonist Antoine-Nicola Henry.8 It was for them that Reicha wrote his first set of wind quintets, and they
presented the premiere of them in 1815.9

Page 87 →

Reicha's wind quintets were issued between the years 1811 and 1820. In all, he published two dozen quintets in
four sets of six: these were Op. 88, printed in Paris by [Pierre-Honoré] Janet et [Alexandre] Cotelle, Opp. 91, 99,
and 100, which were all issued in Paris by Costallat. Op. 100 was also released in Mainz by Schott.

From a stylistic point of view, Reicha's pieces for wind ensemble stood apart from earlier essays for that
ensemble.

Reicha differed from his predecessors inasmuch as he abandoned the rather loose sequence of
serenade-like movements, which he replaced by the stricter four-movement pattern of the sonata
form. In other words, he shifted his quintets from the lighter divertimento genre into the more serious
one of chamber music. In workmanship and effectiveness, his wind quintets were compared to the
string quartets by Haydn.10

Reicha's quintets are colorful pieces. As a flute player himself, he was aware of the limitations and potentials of
winds. Whereas string ensembles provide a homogeneous sound, the wind quintet is a heterogeneous ensemble of
one woodwind, two double-reeds, one single-reed, and one brass instrument. Louis Spohr noted that Reicha's
music for winds often exhibits a disconcerting diffusion of materials.

I found the composition of these two new quintets…rich in interesting sequences of harmony, correct
throughout in the management of the voices, and full of effect in the use made of the tone and
character of the different wind-instruments, but on the other hand, frequently defective in the form.
Mr. Reicha is not economical enough of his ideas, and at the very commencement of his pieces he
frequently gives from four to five themes, each of which concludes in the tonic. Were he less rich, he
would be richer. His periods also are frequently badly connected and sound as though he had written
one yesterday and the other today. Yet the minuets and scherzi, as short pieces, are less open to this
objection, and some of them are real masterpieces in form and contents. A German soundness of
science and capacity are the greatest ornaments of this master. The execution in the rapid subjects was
again wonderfully correct, but somewhat less so in the slow ones.11

This thematic diversity resulted, at least in part, from the nature of the instruments at hand. It is far more difficult
to transfer a motivic figure from a flute to a horn, for example, than from a violin to a viola. Reicha's themes Page
88 →for wind instruments had to be tailored for the characteristics and capabilities of each instrument; thus, the
medium had a direct impact on the nature of the material that the composer invented.
FRANZ DANZI
Franz Danzi, who followed Reicha as the principal cultivator of music for wind quintet, was more successful in
managing formal considerations. Danzi and his forebears were associated with the progressive court of Carl
Theodore at Mannheim. A student of Abbé Vogler, Danzi played stringed instruments and keyboard, but he also
had a thorough training in voice, and was interested in opera. He composed several works for the lyric theater and
was personally acquainted with Carl Maria von Weber.

Danzi composed three sets of wind quintets, Opp. 56, 67, and 68, with three pieces in each. Though Danzi was the
older man, he clearly took his lead from Reicha, to whom his first set of three wind quintets is dedicated. Danzi's
nine chamber pieces for wind quintet were probably composed between 1820 and 1824.12 Op. 56 was issued
under the title Trois quintetti pour flute, hautbois (ou clarinette en ut) clarinette, cor et basson. The edition
appeared simultaneously from the presses of Janet et Cotelle, in Paris, and Schlesinger in Berlin. Both Op. 67 and
Op. 68 were printed by Jean André with the title Trois quintetti pour flute, hautbois, clarinette, cor & bassoon.

In his wind quintets, Danzi reflects Reicha's concern with writing serious chamber music in the Classical tradition.
The four-movement plan is utilized consistently. First movements are ordinarily in sonata form; however, details
of the structure are sometimes modified. In the first movement of Op. 56, No. 1, the Quintet in B-flat major, for
example, the recapitulation dispenses with the opening theme since it had been extensively worked out in the
course of the development section. The secondary theme, which begins at measure 37 of the exposition and
reappears at measure 115 of the recapitulation, is stated in the exposition by the horn, but is given in the
recapitulation to the clarinet. Although the essential gestures and contours are preserved, Danzi's switch from the
mellow tone of the horn to the more piercing, single-reed sonority of the clarinet gives the theme an entirely new
character. As we survey the scores of Danzi's nine quintets, we find that, almost invariably, parallel passages are
subjected to modifications in instrumentation. Although this procedure can also be found in chamber music for
strings, varied instrumentation in wind ensembles is much more easily perceived.

Danzi consistently places his slow movements in second place and minuets Page 89 →in third place. Some of the
minuets—particularly those that use syncopation or irregular metrical accentuation—have the character of a
scherzo; the minuet of the Quintet in G minor, Op. 56, No. 2, is a good example. Final movements are rondos,
sonatas, or the synthetic sonata-rondo that had become common by this time. Tonal relationships among
movements are precisely those of the string quartet: Outer movements stress the tonic, while second movements
are in closely related keys, such as the subdominant or relative key, while third movements return to the principal
tonality. For each set, two quintets are in the major mode, one in the minor. Slow introductions appear only before
first movements, and they are used only in the final quintet of each set. Danzi's periodic structures are usually
regular. Perhaps he, too, found that Reicha's phrase structures distracted from the music's overall impact.
Page 90 →

SIX
Schubert and Musical Aesthetics of the Early Romantic Era
Beethoven died in 1827, only a single year before Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828). Both spent their most
productive years in Vienna; however, their respective styles are light years apart.

Schubert's radical departure from the Classical style cannot be attributed to any unfamiliarity with the standard
repertoire of the period. We know that he played string quartets with his father and two brothers as a child. We
know, too, that, from the time he entered the Stadtkonvikt in 1808, he was immersed in the music of Haydn,
Mozart, and lesser masters such as Leopold Kotzeluch and Franz Krommer.1 Similarly, Schubert received his
musical training from Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), who, despite popular notions to the contrary, was a composer
of distinction.

Given Schubert's intimacy with the scores of late eighteenth-century masters, it is hard to understand the
unorthodox character of many of his works—particularly the early works. Among his twenty string quartets, the
First, the String Quartet in B-flat, D. 18 (1812), is one of the most daring. The first movement opens with a
plaintive introduction in C minor. The principal tempo arrives in the key of G minor, and a sonata-allegro form
unfolds in that key. The last movement, however, is in the relative major, B-flat. The idea of beginning a piece in
one key and ending in some other tonality—generally called “directional tonality”—was new.2 The First Quartet
is filled with distinctive melodies, intensity of feeling, textural variety, and genuine musical inspiration. The first
movement includes effective sections of contrapuntal imitation placed as contrast to passages in which Schubert's
characteristic melodies are featured in a homophonic Page 91 →texture against a backdrop of nervously repeating
chords in the lower stings.

A similarly novel approach can also be seen in the well-known Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 114, known as the
Trout Quintet (1819). The scoring is unusual, since it includes the double bass, an instrument that Schubert later
included in his Octet in F major, D. 803 (1824) for clarinet, horn, bassoon, two violins, viola, cello, and bass. The
presence of this instrument in the Quintet had important consequences for the piano part, which consists much of
the time of a single line played by both hands in octaves. Furthermore, these melodies are generally pitched very
high in the compass of the instrument. Schubert probably realized that the bass part was already amply covered by
the cello and bass, and that he would be compelled to use the piano in an unorthodox manner in order to make his
strange ensemble effective.

The Trout Quintet is one of the first, fully revealing examples of Schubert's chamber music. The name of the piece
derives from the fact that the fourth movement is a series of variations on Schubert's song of 1817, “Die Forelle”
(The trout). Schubert frequently used his own songs within chamber works: “Sei mir gegrüßt” (I greet thee)
appears in the Fantasy for Violin and Piano, and the song “Der Tod und das Mädchen” (Death and the maiden)
gives its name to the String Quartet in D minor, D 810. Clearly, lyrical melodies occupy a crucial role in all of
Schubert's music.

The compositional draft of Schubert's song cycle Die Winterreise (1827) reveals his compositional procedure: The
two layers of ink (sepia and black) show that Schubert wrote the melodies first and the accompaniment afterward.
Though motivic interplay among voices appears, it does so within the context of an essentially melodic
conception.

As a consequence Schubert's orientation towards melody, the role of harmony is significantly altered. While
melodic content may often be repeated with little or no modification, harmonies supporting the melodies are
constantly changing. Two devices were important in enabled Schubert to achieve such great harmonic freedom:
the structural interchange of parallel major and minor modes, and the arrangement of tonalities within formal
structures in chains of thirds.
The first movement of the Trout Quintet contains an example of a typical, Schubertian modification to Classical
pattern forms. The structure is a sonata-allegro plan. The exposition contains the standard duality of themes (here
accentuated by the fact that the secondary theme is introduced by piano solo—to compensate for the curious
keyboard writing earlier mentioned). Tonal relationships are similarly conservative: the first Page 92 →theme,
with its lilting, triplet figuration, is in the key of A major; the second theme is in E major. In the recapitulation,
however, the first theme returns in the key of D major. A retransition section follows, and it modulates up a fifth
to the tonic key of A major. This type of recapitulation is often called a subdominant recapitulation, but since the
formal principle may be applied at other tonal levels, the procedure might be more general designated as a
nontonic recapitulation.

The questions must invariably arise: is recapitulation a harmonic or a melodic process? Furthermore, what is the
purpose of this procedure, if not simply to save the composer time in writing the recapitulation of a sonata? The
answer to the first question returns us to our initial comments about Schubert as an innovator of the early
Romantic era. Melody assumes an increased importance in his music. It is not surprising that this phenomenon
should be apparent in the formal level as well as in the localized context. Another important consideration to bear
in mind is the role of the retransition section of Classical sonatas. Since tonic is reached by the time the first theme
reappears, the retransition section does not achieve any harmonic motion. Though motivic ideas from the
transition section of the expositions are customarily used, they must be rewritten within their new harmonic role.
In Schubert's subdominant recapitulations, the role of the retransition section is greatly enhanced: True harmonic
motion takes place, and melodies from the exposition can be preserved in transpositions of their original forms. In
Schubert's music, melody is elevated to a form-generating role, a role that becomes increasingly important in later
nineteenth-century and twentieth-century music.

SCHUBERT'S CHAMBER WORKS WITH PIANO

Though he was himself a pianist, Schubert wrote only a handful of compositions for piano with obbligato
instruments. In addition to the Trout Quintet, there are the Adagio and Rondo Concertante, D. 487, for piano with
strings, and the two late piano trios, Op. 100 in E-flat major, and Op. 99 in B-flat major. More copious are his
scores of four-hand piano music.

In assessing the repertoire requiring two pianists, we must distinguish between “duo pianism” and “piano duet.”
The former term refers to music for two pianists, each at his own instrument.3 This repertoire is not chamber
music. When two pianos are required, the expectation is for performances in public concerts halls. Music for piano
duet, on the other hand, is true chamber music.4

Many of Schubert's finest piano duets were written during his visits to Page 93 →Zselis, Hungary, where he acted
during the summers of 1818 and 1824 as music tutor for the children of Count Esterházy (the same Esterházy
family that had employed Haydn). Other piano duets were composed at various times throughout his career.

Schubert's four-hand piano pieces are quite variable in form and content. Variations were in very great demand
among amateur musicians of the period. Schubert wrote several important examples of this genre including his
first published work for piano duet, the eight Variationen über ein Franzosisches Lied, Op. 10, D. 624 (1818).
Lightweight dance music was also much in vogue; accordingly, we have a number of Polonaises, such as the four
composed in 1818 and published as Op. 75, D. 599 and the six that, though dating from 1824, were published as
Op. 61, D. 824. Among the “dance” music of the period, marches occupied an important place. To this genre,
Schubert contributed the three Marches heroïques, of Op. 27, D. 602 (1818), the six Grandes marches, Op. 40, D.
819 (1825), the three Marches militaires, Op. 51, D. 733 (1822), the Grande marche funebre, Op. 55, D. 859
(1826), the Grande marche heroïque, Op. 66, D. 885 (1826), and the two Marches characteristiques, Op. 121, D.
886.

In addition to these popular works for piano duet, Schubert also wrote serious pieces, such as the Sonata in B-flat
major, Op. 30, D. 617 (1818?), another in C major, Op. 140, D. 812 (1824), the Rondo in A major, Op. 107, D
951 (1828), and the magnificent Fantasie in F minor, Op. 103, D. 940 (1828).
Schubert's use of the word fantasy to describe the last piece is misleading. Within the context of this single
continuous movement, the four-movement plan used by the Viennese Classicists for their more complex scores is
still apparent.

The first movement is in sonatina form, and the tonal planes of the exposition are the third-related keys, F minor,
D-flat minor, and A minor. Schubert dispenses with the development section typical of the complete sonata form
and proceeds directly to a brief recapitulation of the opening melody in the principal key.

The relationship between Schubert's main theme for the first movement and Mozart's opening theme in the
Symphony No. 40 in G minor has already been observed in the scholarly literature devoted to Schubert's
Fantasie.5 Striking though the relationship is, Schubert's manner of treating the theme is quite different from
Mozart's. Distinctive in Schubert's movement is his extensive use of the parallel major key; the appearance of the
main theme in the key of F major is both striking and poignant.

The second movement, in the key of F-sharp, contains dotted rhythms Page 94 →in its more assertive sections as
well as in its lyrical interlude in the key of F-sharp major. The scherzo movement commences with the tempo
indication Allegro vivace; this movement is a playful delight that should not be missed by any chamber pianists.

Schubert's final movement is one of the most serious and complex of his compositions. Structurally, the finale is
an extended fugue in F minor culminating in a powerful coda. We know that during the summer of 1824, Schubert
had a copy of Bach's Well-tempered Clavier at Zselis. The fugue of the F-minor Fantasy gives us certain evidence
that he must have studied Bach's contrapuntal manner in detail.

By his last several years, Schubert had achieved some reputation as a composer. The firm of Artaria established
professional relationships with him at precisely this time.6 They commissioned the Rondo in A major, Op 107, but
by the time they published it, Schubert had been dead for a month. It is one of his most convincing scores, but it is
also one of his most conventional pieces. The beauty of the thematic material and the fascinating treatment of the
melodies are typically Schubertian. The structure of the work conforms precisely to the rondo formula. Tonal
relationships are also conventional, but fluctuations between major and parallel minor constantly bring new
aspects of the melody to light.

SCHUBERT'S VOCAL CHAMBER MUSIC

Schubert sometimes used solo voices in his chamber music. Two important works of this sort are the songs Auf
dem Strom, Op. 119, D. 943, for soprano solo, horn, and piano and Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, Op. 129, D. 965, for
soprano solo, clarinet, and piano (both 1828). The former piece is based on a text by Ludwig Rellstab. The latter,
generally known in English as “The Shepherd on the Rock,” combines of verses by Wilhelm Mülller and
Wilhelmine von Chezy.

Schubert composed Der Hirt auf dem Felsen for Pauline Anna Milder-Hauptmann (1785-1835), the soprano he
hoped would create the leading role in his opera Der Graf von Gleichen.7 Milder-Hauptmann had a formidable
reputation. Her voice came first to the attention of Emmanuel Schikaneder. She subsequently studied with Salieri.
She created the parts of Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio and Giunone in Franz Xavier Süßmeyer's Specchio
d'Arcadia, and was known for her rendition of many roles in the operas of Luigi Cherubini and Christoph
Willibald Gluck. Napoleon was among her admirers. Milder-Hauptmann was familiar with Page 95 →Schubert's
music prior to the composition of Der Hirt auf dem Felsen. (She was largely responsible for the popularization of
Erlkönig)

A versatile and dramatic singer, she nevertheless possessed a flexible voice of which Schubert took full advantage
in Der Hirt auf dem Felsen. The text, based on one of Müller's Ländliche Lieder with alterations by von Chezy,
begins with a pastoral atmosphere, progresses to one of sadness, and concludes in a mood of hopeful anticipation
of the return of spring—and happiness along with it. The text and translation are given below.

Wenn auf dem höchsten Fels ich steh',

In's tiefe Thal herniederseh',

Und singe, und singe,

Fern aus dem tiefen dunkeln Thal

Schwingt sich empor der Wiederhall,

Der Wiederhall der Klüfte.

Je weiter meine Stimme dringt,

Je heller sie mir wiederklingt

Von unten, von unten.

Mein Liebchen wohnt so weit von mir,

Drum seh'n ich mich so heiss nach ihr

Hinüber, hinüber.

In tiefem Gram verzehr' ich mich,

Mir ist die Freude hin,

Auf Erden mir di Hoffnung wich,

Ich hier so einsam bin.

So sehnend klang im Wald das Lied,

So sehnend klang es durch die Nacht,

Die Herzen es zum Himmel zieht

Mit wunderbarer Macht.

Der Frühling will kommen,

Der Frühling meine Freud',

Nun mach' ich mich fertig,

Zum Wandern berteit.

(When high upon the crag I stand,

And look forth to the vale below,

And sing, and sing,

Far from out the deep, dark vale,

Then echo forth resounding tones,

Resounding tones from chasms.

Page 96 →
 The longer that my voice resound,

The brighter to me it rebounds

From down below, from down below.

My darling is so far away,

I yearn to go now to her side!

To her side! To her side!

By deepest woe I am o'ercome,

Joy from my path has fled,

On earth for me all hope is lost,

I stand here, desolate.

Thus yearing sounds through woods my song,

Thus yearning sounds it through the night,

It draws two hearts t'ward heaven in rapture.

The springtime will arrive,

The springtime of my joy,

Now be my soul prepared,

For wand'ring prepar'd.)

Schubert's setting of the poem falls into three large sections that reflect the mood shifts in the poetic text. The
piano accompaniment, though interesting harmonically, remains essentially subservient to the duet texture of the
soprano and clarinet soloists. The themes of the duet are quite evenly distributed between the clarinet and the
vocalist. Again, we must remark that Schubert has reacted to circumstances in a most sensitive and musical way.
The poetic images of echoing sounds resulted in clarinet and voice parts designed largely in call-and-response
fashion.

Schubert's wish of having Milder-Hauptmann sing this remarkable piece was ultimately realized; however, by the
time she gave the premiere performance in 1830, Schubert had already been dead for two years.

SCHUBERT'S PIANO TRIOS

Schubert's final works for piano duet, and the late vocal chamber music repertoire as well, attest to the fact that he
had reached the zenith of his creative powers by about the year 1822—the year in which he composed the two
movements that we now know as the Unfinished Symphony. It was during this period that he also composed his
finest string quartets and the two piano trios.

The Trio in E-flat, Op. 100, D. 929, dates from November 1827, as the inscription in the upper right-hand corner
of the composer's manuscript Page 97 →shows. Other primary sources document its history: Early in 1828, the
publishing house of B. Schott's Söhne, Mainz, wrote to Schubert requesting some pieces. Not long before, the
violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh had joined forces with the cellist Joseph Linke and the youthful pianist Carl Maria
von Bocklet in the first performance of the Trio in E-flat. Schauppanzigh played regularly with Linke, and the
gifted Bocklet apparently joined in with ease. The premiere on 26 December 1827 was a great success. A second
performance followed on 28 January 1828 at the home of Josef von Spaun. Encouraged by the favorable reception
of the piece, Schubert offered it to Schott. As it turned out, however, Schott decided that the piece was too long;
thus, unsuitable for publication. This view was shared by Schubert's friend, Leopold von Sonnleitner, who insisted
that “one cannot deny the fact that the Trio is too long and that it has only gained in effect through the cuts which
have been tried out in recent times.”8

The cuts to which Sonnleitner refers are those in the fourth movement of the edition of Heinrich Albert Probst.
This Leipzig publisher had approached Schubert at the same time as Schott, and when Schott declined to publish
the Trio, Schubert sent the abridged version to Probst. This edition was not available in Vienna until December
1828, almost a month after the composer's death. The original, unabridged version has been preserved, and it is
included in the New Schubert Edition.9

Two curiosities of the E-flat Trio should be mentioned: First, it presents another example of Schubert's using a
preexistent tune as the basis of an instrumental chamber piece. Sonnleitner is our source on this point. In his
account of Schubert's life, he says, “Here I will provide you with some further information about the origin of the
Trio: the well-known singer Josef Siboni, who was director of the Conservatory in Copenhagen at the time, had a
pupil, [Isaak Albert] Berg, a young tenor of remarkable talent…. He sang Swedish folk songs very well, and
Schubert…was quite taken up with these Swedish songs. He asked for a copy of them and used the best of them as
themes for the E-flat Trio.”10

The second point is that in the fourth movement, Schubert recalls thematic material from the second movement,
and—in the climax of the piece—presents the principal themes of the second and fourth movements
simultaneously. This passage, unusual for Schubert since he rarely attempted to integrate movements of a larger
work in this fashion, was omitted in the shortened version.

Robert Schumann praised this work highly, and Johannes Brahms owned Schubert's handwritten score of it.

We know little about the B-flat Trio, D. 898, save that Diabelli published Page 98 →it in 1836 as Schubert's Op.
99. It was probably not performed during the composer's lifetime. Because of its opus number, musicologists have
assumed that this work predates the E-flat Trio, but this is not necessarily so. The manuscript was not part of
Schubert's estate at the time of his death. In all likelihood, Schubert himself disposed of it earlier. It may be that
Schubert, encouraged by the success of the E-flat Trio, composed the B-flat Trio in hopes of repeating the
triumph. Consequently, it is possible that the B-flat Trio was composed after the E-flat Trio. The fact that
Schubert offered the E-flat Trio to both Schott and Probst in the early part of 1828 would seem to verify this
hypothesis, since, if he had had two unpublished trios on hand, he would have offered one to Schott and the other
to Probst.

As Schumann points out in his discussion of these two pieces, “They bear little resemblance to each other.” He
viewed the E-flat Trio “active, masculine, and dramatic” and the B-flat Trio as “passive, feminine, and lyrical.”11
Regarding the Andante of this trio Schumann observed that “it is a happy dream, a rising and falling of genuine
feeling.” Here, as in the F-minor Fantasie, Schubert's gift for combining pure lyricism with contrapuntal
imagination is impressive: Note how the theme is treated at length by each of the instruments of the ensemble.

SCHUBERT'S FINAL STRING QUARTETS

Schubert composed fourteen quartets. In addition, he left isolated movements, presumably intended as part of
multimovement pieces. We have already discussed the peculiar features of the First String Quartet, D. 18. The
next nine quartets (D. 32, 36, 46, 68, 74, 94, 112, 173, 87) were all composed between 1812 and 1816 for
performance by Schubert's immediate family.

In his history of the string quartet, Paul Griffiths has called the single quartet movement of 1820 in C minor, D.
703, “the majestic stepping stone to the mature Schubert quartet.”12 The movement is in 6/8 meter and bears the
tempo indication Allegro assai. The movement is in sonata-allegro form, and the principal themes are organized in
third-related keys. The recapitulation is not simply a tonally adjusted version of the exposition. Instead, the
liberties taken in the second part of the sonata reveal most clearly Schubert's progressive ideas. The movement in
C minor is followed in the manuscript, which was once owned by Brahms, by a fragment of a triple-meter
Andante.

It is difficult to understand why Schubert abandoned this quartet. The Page 99 →first movement is convincing
enough. What we do know is that during the late teens and early 1820s, Schubert experienced some sort of
compositional block. From the year 1818, for example, we have the sketch of a symphony in D. From 1821, there
survive drafts of a symphony in E, a work in four movements that was known to Mendelssohn and Sir George
Grove. Best known, of course, is the pair of movements written in 1822, known commonly as the Unfinished
Symphony, D. 799.

Schubert's next completed string quartet was the A-minor Quartet, D. 804, of 1824. This piece was to have been
one of three quartets in a projected Op. 29. The A-minor Quartet was published as Op. 29, No. 1 by the Viennese
firm Sauer & Leidesdorf in 1824. (They later published his song cycle Die schöne Müllerin) The other two
quartets that would have completed the set are those in D minor, D. 810, and G major, D. 887, which were
composed between 1824 and 1826.

Of these, the D-minor Quartet, generally called Death and the Maiden, is the best known. All three quartets are
equally impressive, but the D-minor Quartet has become popular because of its nickname, which stems from
Schubert's use of his song of 1817 “Der Tod und das Mädchen,” D. 531, as the basis of the variations in the
second movement (Andante con moto). The original poem was the work of Matthias Claudius, whose “simplicity
of form and piety of thought” have endeared him to generations of readers. His verses “combine childlike naiveté
with a rare depth and purity of feeling, which gave some of his poems the true ring of a folk song.”13

Vorüber, ach vorüber,

Geh wilder Knochenmann!

Ich bin noch jung,

Geh Lieber und rühre mich nicht an.

Gib deine Hand, du schöne und zart Gebild,

Bin Freund und komme nicht zu strafen.

Sei gutes Muts! Ich bin nicht wild,

Sollst sanft in meinem Armen schlafen.

(Pass by, Oh pass by

Go on, you wild skeleton!

I am yet young;

Go, dear, and touch me not.

Give your hand, you beautiful and charming apparition;

I am a friend and have not come to chastize.

Be of good courage! I am not wild,

Gently shall you sleep in my arms.)

Page 100 →
For his variations, Schubert quotes only the music related to the character of Death. Self-quotation in Schubert's
last quartet series is not unique to the D-minor Quartet; in the A-minor Quartet, Op. 29, No. 1, D 804, he cites the
Entr'acte following act 3 from Rosamunde, Fürsten von Cypern, D. 797.

Within the D-minor Quartet Schubert establishes thematic interdependence among its movements with a four-note
figure that appears in the first violin part of the first movement in measure 15. This figure, a note ornamented with
upper-and lower-neighbor tones, appears again and again, and in guises too numerous to count.

The first movement begins with a gripping introductory gesture that features intense dynamics and homorhythmic
statement of the theme. Throughout the first segment of the exposition, triplet rhythm within the context of
common time is of utmost importance. The exposition ends in the key of A minor. This is one of the few instances
we can point to as evidence for a structural minor dominant function in tonal music. The recapitulation (meas.
198) is unmistakable, but everything is entirely rewritten; even the opening gesture is modified in the first violin
part by a transposition of the theme an octave higher. The codetta (meas. 311) makes brilliant use of motivic
imitation and tempo contrasts.

The second movement shows the influence of Beethoven; the characteristic dactylic rhythm of the theme, the
bland character of the melody, the formal design—based at least in part on the variation principle—and the
harmonic peculiarities all mirror similar ideas in the Allegretto of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. The boldness
of the third variation with its rich chords in first violin and cello, its diminution of the dactylic rhythm, and many
other details show the mature master at work. The delicacy of the fourth variation and its shift from G minor to G
major are also characteristic of Schubert's nuance. The intensity resulting both from the return to minor mode and
the deliberate confusion of the beat by persistent triplet figures in the cello part of the fifth variation are Romantic
rather than Classic gestures.

The Scherzo (Allegro molto) returns to the key of D minor. Formally, this movement is conservative. Beethoven's
influence can be perceived in its driving rhythms and syncopations. Even more striking, and relating again
particularly to the Allegretto of the Seventh Symphony, is the use of the second inversion sonority at the opening
of the second strain of the scherzo.

The finale, a synthesis of sonata and rondo forms, is a powerful Presto in 6/8 time. The germinal motif appears at
various points, as it had in the Page 101 →Scherzo, to lend unity to the four-movement cycle. The coda that
rounds the movement off takes the tempo up a notch to Prestissimo and looks forward to the manner of Felix
Mendelssohn.

We have an account from Franz Lachner, who tells us in his memoir of Schubert (1881) about the premiere
performance of the Death and the Maiden quartet, which took place in his own apartment in Vienna. He observes
that

this latter quartet, which nowadays delights everybody and is counted among the grandest creations of
its kind, by no means met with undivided approval. The first violin, Sch., who, on account of his great
age, was admittedly not equal to such a task, declared to the composer, after playing it through, “My
dear fellow, this is no good, leave it alone; you stick to your songs!”, whereupon Schubert silently
packed up the sheets of music and shut them away in his desk for ever.14

Ludwig Speidel clarifies the identity of “Sch.” in his account:

One day Schubert took his newly completed String Quartet in D minor to Schuppanzigh, in his day a
very famous quartet player, with the request that he would play it to him. The members of the quartet
put out the parts and began to play, but after several bad mistakes they came to a stop in the middle of
the first movement, and abandoned the others, Schuppanzigh declaring that this was not quartet
writing and was not playable at all. Franz Schubert, silent and smiling, put the parts together and
behaved as if nothing had happened.15

On the basis of these accounts, it is difficult to say exactly what happened when Schuppanzigh's ensemble played
Schubert's new piece. Parts may have been faulty; in 1826, Schuppanzigh (b. 1776) was sixty years old—hardly
what one would refer to as “great age.” It would be unfair both to Schubert and Schuppanzigh to propose any
hypothesis. All that can be said with certainty is that Schuppanzigh had devoted his entire career to the
advancement of art music—and particularly chamber music; that Schubert had thought enough of him to dedicate
his Quartet in A-minor, Op. 29, No. 1 to him; and that, despite the initially negative reaction to the boldness of the
D-minor Quartet, it has become one of the cornerstones of chamber music literature.
Page 102 →

SEVEN
Prince Louis Ferdinand and Louis Spohr
PRINCE LOUIS FERDINAND: A MUSICAL AMATEUR
Frederick the Great's nephew, Friedrich Christian Ludwig (1772-1806), Prince of Prussia—known as Louis
Ferdinand—shared his uncle's enthusiasm for music. Gifted with enormous talents, Louis was active both as a
performer and as a composer. He always remained an amateur musician, but he certainly had the capability to
have become a professional.

Though he composed a great deal of fine chamber music, his works remain largely unknown. The reasons for this
neglect are easily discovered: his name is associated first and foremost with the powerful Prussian aristocracy of
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; consequently, he himself, in a sense, overshadowed his works as
a creative artist. Furthermore Louis, like Schubert, had the bad fortune of dying before he reached the age of forty.
He was killed in combat with Napoleon's army at the Battle of Saalfeld on 10 October 1806.

Louis had been surrounded with fine music since his early childhood. He was acquainted with the works of
Mozart, Dittersdorf, Beethoven, and other Viennese Classicists, Cramer, Gluck, composers of the Berlin song
school, and also music of J. S. Bach, which was preserved in the library of Princess Amalia. Louis Ferdinand
knew many of the leading composers of his own age firsthand. He met Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812) in 1803
at Magdeburg. Subsequently, Dussek often advised him concerning both piano technique and composition. He
first met Beethoven in Berlin in 1796, then they met again in Vienna in 1804. Beethoven dedicated his Third
Piano Page 103 →Concerto in C minor, Op. 37, to the prince, whose virtuosity at the keyboard was widely
respected. As a composer, too, Louis Ferdinand was recognized as a formidable talent. Robert Schumann once
called him “the Romanticist of the Classical period.”1 Other musicians who expressed admiration for Louis
Ferdinand's abilities include Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Louis Spohr, Carl Maria von Weber, and Franz Liszt.
Liszt did this by using themes of the prince's music in an Elegy that he composed in 1842 and dedicated to
Princess Augusta of Prussia.

The principal chamber works of Louis Ferdinand include the Quintet in C minor for Piano and Strings, Op. 1,
which was issued in Paris by Erard in 1803; the Piano Trio in A-flat major, Op. 2; a second Piano Trio in E-flat
major, Op. 3; and a Quartet for Piano and Strings in E-flat major, Op. 5, all published in Leipzig by Breitkopf und
Härtel in 1806; a second Piano Quartet in F minor, Op. 6, printed in the following year by Breitkopf und Härtel;
and a “Grand Trio” in E-flat major, Op. 10, which was published in Berlin by Werckmeister in 1806.2 In that
same year, Breitkopf und Härtel began publishing his works in cooperation with Dussek. The prince did not live to
see his music in print, nor did he have the opportunity to make corrections of the proofs.

The Quintet in C minor for Piano and Strings, Op. 1, is remarkable; it is the earliest example of the piano quintet
(piano with string quartet), a chamber ensemble that subsequently became one of the standard chamber
ensembles.3 The Quintet is an impressive work in four movements dedicated to Friedrich Heinrich Himmel
(1765-1814), himself a prolific composer and virtuoso pianist.

The first movement, in sonata form, treats the ensemble in the manner of a concerto with the piano contrasting
with the string quartet. Virtuosic aspects of the piano part include extended arpeggios, rapid scalar passages, and
scales in parallel thirds. The first appearance of these scales in thirds presents little problem to a competent pianist
since the right hand can take the upper note and the left hand the lower note; however, the corresponding passage
in the recapitulation actually has scales in parallel thirds in both the right-and left-hand parts.

The structure of the movement is absolutely clear. Each of the three themes—the opening theme, the subordinate
theme, and the closing theme—is highly profiled and distinctive. The powerful, upward leaping minor sixth is the
conspicuous feature of the opening theme.

The secondary theme, an expressive melody in E-flat major, is stated initially by the piano with doublings here
and there in the string parts to enrich the sonority and add splashes of color. After its statement, the string
ensemble takes up the theme, and the piano accompanies. Occasionally, the strings join with the piano for
statements of grandiose character. The concerto influence is apparent in the frequent articulation of structural
elements by tonic 6 chords, and by trills in the solo piano part that lead to a reentry of the strings.

Page 104 → Page 105 →

The second movement, a minuet and trio, is conspicuous for its “wrong-note” theme that anticipates the sarcastic
tone of later Romantic scores by composers like Gustav Mahler. The third movement, a set of variations on an
original theme, exhibits fluid rhythms and flexible subdivision of the beat. This sort of subdivision—in which
five, six, or more tones are combined under a slur with a numerical tally—is common in the music of Chopin and
his successors; however, Louis Ferdinand's compositions are among the earliest to use such fluid rhythms.
Interesting harmonies and extensive chromaticism pervade this movement. The finale is the most conventional
movement of the four, and it wraps up the piece with a good-natured display of virtuosic writing for the piano.
Robert Schumann knew and admired the prince's music, and this score doubtless served as Schumann's model
when he came to write his own piano quintet.

The four-movement Piano Quartet in F-minor, Op. 6, opens with an Allegro moderato in an extended sonata form
with an expressive coda.4 The minuet, placed as the second movement, has two trios. The minuet sections
resemble scherzos because they are riddled with syncopations and sudden dynamic accents, while the contrasting
trios flow along smoothly. The slow third movement bears the tempo indication Adagio lento e amoroso.
Virtuosic passages for the piano, extensive use of Classical rubato (i.e., one hand is delayed by an eighth-or
sixteenth-note rest from the other), dramatic shifts from major to minor mode, and an elaborate cadenza all form a
movement that is expressive yet balanced. The final movement, Allegro ma moderato, is a theme with variations.
The layout of the movement is such that there is a fairly regular alternation between minor and major tonalities. A
highly flexible melodic style results from the frequent use of irregular subdivisions of the beat, as we have already
observed in the slow movement of the C-minor Quintet.

Throughout the four movements, the various instruments are maintained on an equal footing. The judicious
distribution of melodies and motifs throughout this score is a good indication of Louis Ferdinand's skill as a
composer of chamber music. The violin virtuoso and composer Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881) revived this work
for concert performance in 1848.

Louis Ferdinand also wrote a number of light, occasional pieces, such Page 106 →as the Andante with Variations
for Piano Quartet, Op. 4 (1806); the Notturno (1808) for obbligato piano, flute, violin, viola, and cello with
optional parts for two horns; and a Larghetto variée for piano, violin, viola, cello, and bass. Pieces of this sort
were written in great number for the musical salons of well-to-do families.

LOUIS SPOHR: A PROFESSIONAL MUSICIAN

The music of German-born Louis Spohr (1784-1859) was much admired during his lifetime, and he had an
extraordinarily active career as a concert artist and conductor. In his extensive travels, which are recounted in his
autobiography, he visited the principal music centers of Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, England, France,
Germany, Holland, Italy, Russia, and Switzerland.5

Spohr's contributions to chamber music literature include sixteen duos for two violins, thirty-four string quartets,
seven string quintets, a string sextet, four double-quartets for strings, twenty-one duos for violin and piano, five
piano trios, two piano quintets with strings, a quintet for piano and winds, four sonatas for violin and harp, a
septet, an octet, and a nonet.6 These last three pieces are all for mixed ensembles. In addition to these serious
pieces, he wrote a number of works calculated to be crowd-pleasers. Three such pieces, all written early in Spohr's
career, are scored for violin solo with the accompaniment of violin, viola, and cello, but Spohr did not use the
designation string quartet for these pieces; hence, they are not counted in the tally given above.

The number and sequence of movements in the various chamber music genres cultivated by Spohr can be traced to
the Viennese Classicists. Serious chamber works in three movements are generally called “sonata.” For the five
piano trios, the three piano quintets, the Octet, Op. 32, the Nonet, Op. 31, the four double-quartets, and his string
quartets, Spohr adhered to the traditional, four-movement plan. In his quartets featuring the first violin as soloist
(examples of the quatuor brillant), Spohr prefered the three-movement plan of the concerto. Slow introductions
are used infrequently and only to preface first movements. When they do appear, introductions are
brief—generally in the range of two-dozen measures. The Adagio opening of Op. 32, only eight measures long, is
the shortest. Other works with introductions include the string quartets Op. 45, No. 3, and Op. 152 and the double
quartet Op. 87.

Spohr felt most at home writing in the genres that were familiar to him Page 107 →from his own performance
experiences. As a young man, he won the good favor of Duke Carl Wilhelm Ferdinand, a nephew of Frederick the
Great, who ruled over the Duchy of Brunswick.7 Eventually, Spohr became the concertmaster at Brunswick, the
preferred soloist in concertos, and the featured player in chamber music concerts.

In the Brunswick quartet circles that Spohr frequented, his imagination was fired by the chamber
music of Haydn and Mozart and, shortly after their publication in 1801, by Beethoven's op. 18 string
quartets. Contact with music of this order helped to sharpen his sense of style and spurred him on….
At these private gatherings his playing was also stimulated by encounters with visiting violinists such
as Carl August Seidler and the young Friedrich Wilhelm Pixis.8

Spohr began using a Tourte bow in 1802, and he played a Guarneri violin during the years 1803 and 1804;
however, when the instrument was stolen, he replaced it with one by Guadagnini.9 This violin was probably the
work of Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (ca. 1711-1786), a builder noted particularly for the full, rich, and powerful
timbre of his instruments.

Contemporary writings by and about Spohr tell us a good deal concerning his bowing, phrasing, and articulation:
He liked to play as many notes as possible under one bow stroke; he used portamento extensively (particularly in
slow movements); and he disapproved of the French practice at that time of accenting the last note of a phrase.

SPOHR'S DUOS FOR VIOLIN

Spohr's chamber music from the early part of his career is almost exclusively for strings. His first published
chamber work was a set of three Duos for Violins, Op. 3 (1802). By the time Spohr wrote these pieces, the violin
duo as a genre already had an impressive history, both as a medium for pedagogy and for display of virtuosity.
Early nineteenth-century virtuosi, such as Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755-1824), Pierre Marie François de Sales
Baillot (1771-1842), Pierre Rode (1774-1830), Emmanuel Guérin (1779-after 1824), and François Antoine
Habeneck (1781-1849), had contributed important examples. During Spohr's lifetime and subsequent to it, the
medium continued to flourish in the writings of eminent violinists like Jean-Baptiste-Charles Dancla (1817-1907).
The duo repertoire ranged from easy pieces, like Guérin's Duos faciles, Op. 1, to showpieces like Spohr's
Concertante for Two Violins, Op. 88, which he wrote in 1833 for Page 108 →performance at the Halberstadt
Music Festival with Karl Friedrich Müller, the first violinist of the Müller Quartet. 10 Spohr's Op. 3 Duos were
followed by three in Op. 9 (1806-7), three in Op. 39 (1816), Op. 48 (1808), the three of Op. 67 (1824), the above-
mentioned Op. 88, Op. 148 (1853), Op. 150 (1854), and Op. 153 (1855). When we consider the fact that Spohr's
last opus number was 154, the importance throughout his career of the duo for unaccompanied violins becomes
clear.

SPOHR'S MATURITY
In 1805, Spohr left Brunswick, the town of his birth and childhood, to become concertmaster at Gotha. He held
that post until 1812. There he met Dorothea (i.e., Dorette) Scheidler, a harpist possessing both an admirable
technique and an elegant manner of expression. Spohr married her in February 1806. From the time of their first
meeting until her death in 1834, he regularly wrote chamber pieces for their use on concert tours.

The match was an ideal one; throughout the twenty-eight years of their marriage they remained
devoted to one another…. The strength of their marriage lay partly in their shared musical lives. As a
harpist Dorette became a distinguished virtuoso [sic]…. At the same time her well-developed critical
instinct allowed her to take an informed interest in…her husband's creative work.11

The most significant works that Spohr composed for his wife were the various sonatas for harp and violin. The
earliest of these, a Sonata in C minor, WoO 23, dates from 1805. In the next year, Spohr wrote the Sonata in B-flat
major, Op. 16 as well as the Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 113. The Sonata in G major, Op. 115, followed in 1809.
Another sonata, this one in D major, Op. 114, dates from 1811. With the exception of Op. 114, the sonatas are in
the customary succession of three movements with the tempos fast-slow-fast. The D-major Sonata consists of only
two movements. The second of these is a potpourri of themes taken from Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (1791). The
last three sonatas, Opp. 113-15, use scordatura tunings. As Spohr explains in his autobiography:

I conceived the idea of pitching the harp half a tone lower than the violin…. as the violin sounds most
brilliantly in the cross or sharp notes, but the harp best in the B-tones or flat notes, when the fewest
pedals possible are moved; I thereby obtained for both instruments the most favourable and most
effective key-notes: for the violin namely, D and G; for the harp E[-flat] and A-flat. A second
advantage was that from the Page 109 →lower tuning of the harp, a string would less frequently
break…. From this time therefore, I wrote all my Compositions for harp and violin in that difference
of keys.12

From 1813 to 1815, Spohr was active in Vienna. The Viennese years were particularly rich in chamber works,
largely owing to a commission from Johann Tost “to compose as much chamber music as he liked, for which Tost
would pay on a sliding scale…in proportion to the number of instruments involved.”13 Spohr's most populous
chamber pieces, the Nonet in F major for violin, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn,
Op. 31, and the Octet in E major for violin, two violas, cello, double bass, clarinet, and two horns, Op. 32, came
into being under these circumstances; but not all of Spohr's Viennese chamber music was written for Tost. Spohr's
final chamber work before leaving the city on 8 March was the String Quartet in C major, Op. 29, No. 2. The three
quartets of Op. 29 are dedicated to Andreas Romberg (1767-1821), who had criticized some of Spohr's earlier
quartets as being inferior to his orchestral music. Perhaps, therefore, Spohr's dedication of the quartets to Romberg
was an invitation to the older composer to witness the advances he had made in the management of this exacting
medium.

The several years following Spohr's departure from Vienna were devoted to touring in Germany, Switzerland, and
Italy. From 1817 until 1819, he resided mainly in Frankfurt. In both Vienna and Frankfurt, Spohr functioned
primarily as the conductor of operas; nevertheless, he continued to compose and perform chamber music. During
the final segment of Spohr's career, the years from 1822 until his death, he was the Hofkapellmeister in Kassel.

During the 1820s, Dorette became increasingly interested in performance on the piano, apparently because her
failing health made it difficult for her to play the harp. Spohr wrote a number of chamber works, such as the
Quintet in C minor for piano, flute, clarinet, horn, and bassoon, Op. 52. In this particular work, the piano part is
featured, and the remaining instruments are largely accompanimental. After Dorette's death in 1834, Spohr never
again wrote for the harp.

In 1836, Spohr remarried; this time, to Marianne Pfeiffer, a talented pianist. In his subsequent chamber works, the
piano assumes a more prominent role. “To a large extent, Spohr's burgeoning interest in piano composition sprang
directly from the stimulus of Marianne's pianistic ability…. For a period of ten years, from 1836, he wrote no
chamber music for strings alone, but a considerable amount with piano.”14

Page 110 →
Mostly late works, Spohr's chamber pieces with piano reflect both the consolidation of his compositional
technique and the growing importance of the Romantic style; nevertheless, because Spohr did not play keyboard
instruments of any sort, he seems not to have been fully aware of the piano's capabilities. Finding an idiomatic
keyboard manner took time. His earliest attempts are often repetitious, and they suffer from a lack of variety in
motivic and rhythmic elements. Similarly, he fails to exploit the full range of the instrument. In a different sense,
however, Spohr's unfamiliarity with the piano was an advantage: the unbridled virtuosity of piano music by
Kalkbrenner, Chopin, Liszt, and Mendelssohn defeats any attempts at creating a balanced ensemble.

Among Spohr's chamber music with keyboard, the Septet in A minor, Op. 147 is a particularly fine example.
Written in 1852, it was intended for the court of Kassel, presumably with his wife at the piano. The second
movement, Larghetto con moto, opens with a tranquil yet expansive melody for horn. The melody is echoed by
the piano and then in turn by other instruments in the ensemble (flute, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, and cello).
The movement contains elements that anticipate the style of Brahms. The tumultuous minuet, for instance, is filled
with syncopations, shifted accents, and somber passages in minor mode. The clarinet melody of the trio is
beautifully written, and it reveals the knowledge of the instrument that Spohr obtained through his association
with Johann Simon Hermstedt (1778-1846) for whom he composed four clarinet concertos between 1808 and
1829. The final movement uses as one of its principal themes a descending, scalar motif that appeared earlier in
the Larghetto. Throughout the piece, Spohr's use of imitative counterpoint is judicious, dramatic, and effective in
creating genuine interplay among the seven instruments.

SPOHR'S STRING QUARTETS

The string quartet occupied a prominent place in Spohr's compositional activity. His thirty-four quartets span a
period of fifty years, the earliest having been published in 1806, the last in 1856.15 They are variable in style, and
their particular characteristics depended upon the occasion for which each was written, the intended market for the
publication, as well as the prevailing tastes and Spohr's own compositional interests at any given time. The firms
that issued his quartets included Simrock, Steiner, Peters, Schlesinger, André, Breitkopf und Härtel, and others, all
leading music publishers of the day. While their willingness to publish Spohr's Page 111 →chamber music may
not offer proof of its quality, it nevertheless confirms the significance and influence of this repertoire during the
nineteenth century.16

As a sample of Spohr's handling of the quatuor concertante, we may look at the second quartet of Op. 58, a set of
three that, according to the composer, are “shorter, easier, and more effective” than his previous quartets of Op.
45.17 Composition of the first two quartets, in E-flat major and A minor respectively, took place in Dresden
during November and December 1821. The third quartet, in G major, was completed in March of the following
year in Kassel.

The A-minor Quartet begins with a sonata-form movement in which the first violin carries the main theme, with
its distinctive dotted rhythms, descending chromatic tones, and trills, as the lower strings accompany. The second
strain, in the relative major, lies rather low in the first violin's range, but Spohr seems to have made the downward
move in order to facilitate a more balanced dialogue with the cello, which takes up the new theme eight measures
later. Attention shifts again to the first violin in the closing segment, and Spohr provides some brilliant writing
with triplets, quintuplets, rapid chromatic figuration, and broken octaves as the exposition, which is to be repeated,
draws to a close. Throughout the development section, Spohr recalls elements from the exposition—trills in the
first violin, chromatic lines, and the dotted rhythm of the opening theme. The second theme, previously heard in C
major, is recalled in A major; hence, the first violin is in a much higher range, and the music sounds much brighter
and more vigorous than it had formerly. Apart from its transposition to A major, the closing theme appears with
little change.

The second movement is a duple-meter set of variations in F major on a sixteen-measure theme in symmetrical
binary form. Spohr gives two variations in which all four instruments are equally active before proceeding to the
key of A major for what is at once a brief scherzo as well as a transformation of the theme. In the final variation,
Spohr returns to F major and duple meter, but now the original theme, marked dolce e cantabile, sings out warmly
in the cello part.

The concluding rondo is marked by Spohr “all' Espagnola,” owing to the dactylic figure that appears in the inner
voices in the first measure and as a motive throughout the movement. Tonalities familiar from the first movement,
A minor, then E major and A major, return along with extensive chromaticism to give the whole piece a sense of
cohesiveness. In its form as well as its florid writing for the first violin, the finale recalls the last movement of
Haydn's String Quartet in E-flat, Op. 33, No. 2.

Page 112 →

The String Quartet in A major, Op. 93, composed in 1835, was the last quatuor brillant to come from Spohr's pen.
Its three movements, Allegro, Larghetto, and Rondo, are prefaced by a short introduction, an Andante, in which
the cello has much of beauty and interest. Though formally comparable to the concerto, the virtuosic writing for
the first violin in the three movements of this solo quartet produces an overall effect that is more lyrical than
dramatic.

THE DOUBLE QUARTET

Spohr's most individual contribution to the genres of nineteenth-century chamber music is the “double quartet.”

The idea of combining two string quartets to form a Double-quartet, with the ensuing increase of
voices, offers much scope for Spohr's predilection for contrapuntal writing, and also fullfils a desire to
enrich the tone-colour in chamber music. Spohr gives this new form particular importance because he
does not, like Mendelssohn in his well-known Op. 20, fuse the two quartets into an octet, but treats
them as two separate, equally important groups, which can enter into the most varied relationships. As
Spohr tells us in his memoirs, he set himself the task of using the two quartets in frequent contrast in
the manner of double choirs, and saving the octet (that is, the combination of all the instruments) for
the climaxes of the work. The alternating of the two quartets, i.e., the interplay either by repetition or
in the form of a dialogue, had therefore to determine the general concept as well as the detail.18

The earliest of these works is Spohr's Double Quartet in D minor, Op. 65, of 1823. Op. 77 in E-flat major
followed in 1827, Op. 87 in E minor in 1833, and Op. 136 in G minor in 1847. The first of the double quartets
reveals a number of stylistic features in addition to those already mentioned. The homorhythmic opening
statement by both quartets at a forte dynamic is striking, as is the enrichment of the first violin part by doubling by
either the second violin or the viola at some interval below—often the octave, third, sixth, or tenth. Of particular
importance is the liberation of the cello in quartet I from its role as harmonic bass. The instrument therefore enjoys
unprecedented prominence as a melody instrument. Spohr makes good use of contrasting articulations. Extended
passages for string “quintet,” with the fifth string part chosen variously from quartet II, are frequently
encountered. The first violin in quartet I generally functions as one of four virtuosi within a quatuor brillant
texture. The early double-quartets Page 113 →are also useful as pedagogical pieces since the parts of quartet II are
generally less difficult than those of quartet I. This feature, however, does not hold true in the later double-
quartets.

In the spring of 1858, a little more than a year before Spohr's death, the British publishers Chappell and Cramer
sponsored the construction of St. James's Hall in London. This hall had a seating capacity of 2,500—enormous for
that time. Completion of the design by Owen Jones ran to £120,000. Cherubic figures of plaster were positioned in
the lancet arches above the side windows. In their hands, these figures held scrolls inscribed with the names of the
greatest composers of the western European tradition. There, beside the names of Mozart, Handel, Beethoven,
Haydn, Weber, Gluck, Purcell, Rossini, and Cherubini, Spohr's name had its place of honor.19
Page 114 →

EIGHT
Champions of Tradition: Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms
THE ROLE OF CHAMBER MUSIC IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY CULTURE
The lifestyles of professional musicians changed radically in the early days of the historical style period that we
generally call the Romantic era. Until about the middle of the eighteenth century, the typical musician might have
expected to find employment in the home of a wealthy aristocrat, or in some ecclesiastical organization. The
events of the later eighteenth century made both of these career opportunities obsolete. As a result of the
Enlightenment, the power of the aristocracy and the Christian church were declining. Logic and reason replaced
the dogma and divine right.

Music patronage was only one aspect of nineteenth-century life that was altered as a result of the great importance
placed upon human intelligence. The development of a systematic method of inquiry led to technological
advances that influenced all aspects of western European society. Farm machinery made it possible for a few
individuals to do the work that had previously been accomplished only by the labor of many hands. Owing to the
new relationship between personnel and productivity, many farmhands became superfluous. These displaced
agrarians migrated en masse to growing urban centers. After their relocation, these people became the middle-
class merchants and factory workers of Europe and America.

The physical layout of middle-class, urban homes differed from the homes of the landed aristocrats. The use of
wrought iron in Europe and of Page 115 →steel in the United States, the numerous structural applications of
reinforced concrete, Richard Trevithick's improvements in the design of steam engines, the development of
generators and electric motors by Michael Faraday, the safe and practical implementation of elevators by Elisha
G. Otis, and other technological advances made it possible for residential dwellings to be stacked one on top of
another rather than being placed side by side on large plots of land. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, a
single acre of land in an urban context could easily provide relatively comfortable residences for scores of people.
This populace found their entertainment in the rapidly increasing number of music halls and opera houses that
appeared in Europe and America. These venues for music, similar in many ways to a mass medium, depended
upon contemporaneous advances in science and technology. Concert halls and opera houses were “of their time,”
but they were poorly suited to chamber ensembles.

In these concert halls, audiences lost their identities. Musicians could no longer write for known listeners in the
way that Haydn composed his baryton trios for Prince Esterhazy, or that Beethoven wrote the Archduke Trio for
his friend Rudolf. As a result, composers were forced to write according to their own inclinations rather than those
of aristocratic or ecclesiastical patrons; hence, Romantic compositions tend to be highly personal. The cool logic
and formal balance apparent in the music of the Age of the Enlightenment can already be seen fading into the
distance in many of Beethoven's works. During the course of the nineteenth century, musical scores of a highly
distinctive nature gradually came to replace the generic compositions of the late eighteenth century; consequently,
the present-day music lover is more apt to know details about Beethoven's personal life—like the Heiligenstadt
Testament, the phantom “Immortal Beloved,” the composer's affliction with syphilis, his tragic loss of hearing,
and so on—than about Haydn's or J. C. Bach's private affairs.

The persona of a particular Romantic composer is often manifested in chamber works with force equal to that in
more stupendous works like Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. It is for this reason that our discussions of Romantic
chamber music will include more reflections upon the events of individual composer's lives than has been typical
of our account up to this point. The great vanguards of romanticism—composers like Berlioz, Wagner, Verdi, and
Liszt—were little concerned with the understated genres of chamber music. All four were progressives. Their
activities were not limited to composition, but also embraced aesthetic theory, philosophy, and even politics. Their
eyes were firmly fixed on the future.
At the same time that the avant-garde composers were proclaiming the Page 116 →music of the future, a growing
number of scholars, performers, and composers began to examine historical and ethnological repertories with an
academic rigor comparable to that already accepted as a convention within scientific disciplines. The
investigations of diverse musics by Raphael Georg Kiesewetter (1773-1850), Friedrich Chrysander's foreword to
his Jahrbuch für musikalische Wissenschaft (Yearbook for musical science, 1863), Guido Adler's organization
with Philipp Spitta and Chrysander of the Vierteljahrschrift für Musikwissenschaft (Quarterly journal of
musicology, 1884), and his mission statement in the opening essay in that journal, “Umfang, Methode und Ziel
der Musikwissenschaft” (Scope, methodology, and objective of musicology, 1885), were harbingers of a growing
desire to resurrect our musical heritage. At the same time, they were clear indications of the Romantic yearning
for the distant, the exotic, and the mysterious.

During the nineteenth century, traditionally minded composers, such as Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms,
continued to write for small ensembles. Their handling of musical materials reflects their knowledge of historical
forms and devices; nevertheless, their musical creations are of their time. For the Romantic composer, the key to
writing successful chamber music was in discovering the diversity behind stereotypes, in building on rather than
rejecting tradition, and in adapting compositional principles to suit their present artistic goals.

THE CHAMBER MUSIC OF FELIX MENDELSSOHN

Mendelssohn's activities ranged widely from his childhood until the time of his early death. As a wunderkind, he
was not only a composer of extraordinary precocity, but also a gifted pianist and string player. His lifelong
fascination with early music may justify his being ranked among the pioneers in the discipline of historical
musicology. He enjoyed painting and sketching; moreover, Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was fortunate enough to
have come from a family whose financial situation made it possible for the boy to travel widely, like the young
Mozart, and to experience firsthand the important musical trends of the times. It has even been suggested that
Mendelssohn's dedication to Germanic musical traditions stemmed, in fact, from his disappointment with the
superficiality that he found in many of these trends.

Mendelssohn's visit to Paris in company with his father in 1825 (actually his second visit—there had
been an earlier one when Felix was only seven) proved a turning point in his career, stimulating both
his critical Page 117 →and his creative faculties. Nowhere else in Europe could a young musician
have met with such a range of talent and variety of outlook as was represented by Cherubini, Rossini,
Meyerbeer, Auber, Liszt, Berlioz, Hummel, Onslow the prolific and popular dilettante composer of
quartets and quintets, Baillot the violinist and teacher of violinists, and Reicha, flautist, composer and
theorist, who had been a colleague of Beethoven's in the Elector's orchestra at Bonn and was to
number both Berlioz and César Franck among his pupils. Felix thrived on the praise that came his
way for his B minor Piano Quartet and other early compositions, but still more on the technical
brilliance of many of the artists he met, and the string players especially: Viotti and Rodolphe
Kreutzer, Habeneck and Baillot. But far from overwhelming him with their authority, these renowned
personalities seemed to bring out the independence of his own character, so that he went out of his
way to assert the claims of German music, especially J. S. Bach and Beethoven; like Spohr five years
earlier, he reacted against the shallowness of much of the operatic, church, and salon music the
French admired. He even found faults in the extemporisation of Liszt, the orchestration of Auber, and
the operas of Rossini. When he returned from Paris it was with intellect and imagination stirred, but at
the same time with a renewed faith in the solid virtues of the German classical tradition.1

German Baroque counterpoint and Austrian Classical formal clarity were, perhaps, the most important elements of
Mendelssohn's musical inheritance. Counterpoint is an essential element even in very early compositions, such as
the String Quartet in E-flat, which will be discussed a bit later. In his use of form, we can see the impact of Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven. Mendelssohn ordinarily kept distinct breaks between movements, and in using
introductions or interludes, he never allowed formal designs to become obscured. Mendelssohn was “neither an
innovator, a creator of a special style, nor a composer who adhered to a specific school. He happened to be…a
champion of old traditions rather than a sower of new seeds.”2 Mendelssohn's predictable use of genres and forms
accounts for the accessibility of much of his music, and the model of the Viennese Classicists was largely
responsible for the great importance that Mendelssohn attached to chamber music.

MENDELSSOHN'S EARLY CHAMBER WORKS

A series of three piano quartets were the first pieces that the composer deemed worthy of opus numbers. These
Quartets, Op. 1 in C minor, Op. Page 118 →2 in F minor, and Op. 3 in B minor, were composed between 1821
and 1825. In all three, the piano part is primary. The writing for the strings is often reminiscent of the old
accompanied sonata. The Quartet, Op. 2, is dedicated to Felix's mentor, Karl Friedrich Zelter (1758-1832), who
introduced the younger man to the music of Sebastian Bach.3 The Quartet, Op. 3, is dedicated to another luminary,
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), who was personally acquainted with both Zelter and Mendelssohn.
“For the average composer, and even for a prominent one, it was not easy to make Goethe's acquaintance beyond
a purely initial stage of courtesy…. But by and by the grand old man became very fond of the youngster, and
before long Felix kissed His Excellency after each performance.”4

The piano quartets are of modest interest; nevertheless, they reveal hints of the genius that we expect to find in
Mendelssohn's mature works. We can see him experimenting with the traditional minuet and trio, since already in
Op. 2, that movement is replaced with one designated as an “Intermezzo.” Also apparent is the use of thematic
transformation and cyclic recollection of themes. These devices, common in Mendelssohn's early works, are
rare—or, at least, extremely subtle—in the compositions of his maturity.

Cyclic composition is also employed in the Sextet in D major, Op. 110, which, despite the late opus number, was
actually composed in 1824.5 The most striking thematic recurrence takes place in the finale, which recalls the
melody of the minuet. The instrumentation of this the piece is unusual: violin, two violas, cello, double bass, and
piano.

Between 1823 and 1825, Mendelssohn also composed at least three sonatas for piano with an obbligato
instrument: the Sonata in F minor, Op. 4, for violin and piano, the Sonata in C minor for viola and piano, and the
Sonata in E-flat for Clarinet and Piano. The sonatas all employ a three-movement plan.

The Viola Sonata was composed between 23 November 1823 and 14 February 1824.6 The first movement begins
with a slow introduction, a structural element that appears consistently in Mendelssohn's sonatas with obbligato
instruments. The Allegro movement that follows is in a conventional sonata form and includes a repetition of the
exposition. The secondary tonality is E-flat major. Here is an early example of Mendelssohn's preference for third-
related keys. (This tonal arrangement is clear in all six of his string quartets, which are ordered with movements in
constellations of thirds.) The second movement is a minuet and trio in the tonic key; however, the trio is in
common time. The finale consists of a theme and Page 119 →eight variations. The last variation, which begins
Adagio, shows the viola to good advantage and places considerable demands upon the pianist, particularly in the
scintillating Allegro molto section that concludes the work. As Mendelssohn's scores go, this piece has little
counterpoint. It is, nevertheless, an appealing work that deserves to be heard more frequently.

The Sonata for Clarinet and Piano opens with an adagio introduction begun by the piano and later joined by the
clarinet. A pedal point is sounded in the keyboard part as Mendelssohn stacks rich harmonies above it. The almost
orchestral character of the piano part at this point is relieved by the unaccompanied clarinet, which plays a free,
cadenza-like transitional passage leading into the movement proper and the principal tempo, allegro moderato.
Throughout the movement—and the entire piece—Mendelssohn maintains a good balance between the two
instruments. The second movement, Andante, begins with an extended passage for solo clarinet. The final cadence
of the opening clarinet idea is elided with the entrance of the piano. The movement proceeds as an elegant duet
with suave melodies much like those in the various “Songs without Words.” The finale, which bears the tempo
indication allegro moderato, is a cheery affair whose principal theme uses repeated notes in both the clarinet and
piano parts. It includes much fine counterpoint in the fugato.

The Sonata in F minor, Op. 4, for violin and piano occupied a special place in Mendelssohn's heart and was the
only one of these three sonatas that Mendelssohn published. He dedicated it to his close friend Eduard Rietz
(1802-1832), with whom the composer studied the violin beginning in 1824.

The overall plan of the Violin Sonata is similar to that of the Clarinet Sonata insofar as both pieces have three
movements and both contain first movements in sonata form prefaced by a slow introduction. In details too, such
as the use of repeated notes within the context of a two-note appoggiatura motif, the two works exhibit
similarities. The first movement of Op. 4, Adagio-Allegro moderato, reverses the scheme of the clarinet piece by
beginning with an extended passage for the solo violin. The second movement, Poco adagio, is well written, but
bespeaks a mood of melancholy that is almost theatrical. In the third movement, marked Allegro agitato,
Mendelssohn tried to strike a balance by writing music of a serious character.

The Sonata in F major (1838) for violin and piano is a substantial composition; however, it was suppressed by the
composer.7 The work remained unknown until 1953, when Yehudi Menuhin made a practical edition.

The crown jewel of Mendelssohn's youthful chamber pieces—he was Page 120 →sixteen years old when he wrote
this piece in 1825—is the String Octet in E-flat, Op. 20. The score, dedicated to Eduard Rietz, requires what
amounts to two string quartets: four violins, two violas, and two celli. Mendelssohn intertwines all eight voices in
a dense texture, yet each voice is thoroughly interdependent.

Formal designs in the Octet are the standard ones. Its four movements, Allegro moderato, ma con fuoco; Andante;
Scherzo (Allegro leggierissimo); and Presto, follow the same arrangement typically found in Classical string
quartets and symphonies. The only features of the piece that might appear as departures from eighteenth-century
models are the use of duple meter for the Scherzo, the absence of a trio, and the highly contrapuntal texture of the
finale. As for the duple meter of the Scherzo, we should recall that in the Scherzo of his Ninth Symphony,
Beethoven had already used duple compound meter. Indeed, Mendelssohn's second movement (Andante) contains
what appears to be a quotation of one of the principal themes of Beethoven's Scherzo.8

The Scherzo of the Octet is an early example of the brilliant yet airy manner that Mendelssohn cultivated in
movements of this sort. Though the movement is light and amusing, it is not without compositional complexity;
the principal theme is put into service as an accompanimental figure too, but it appears in this context in
diminution. Mendelssohn was pleased with this movement, and he later scored it for orchestra as a substitute for
the minuet of his Symphony in C minor, Op. 11.9

For his four-movement String Quintet in A major, Op. 18, Mendelssohn chose the more typical instrumentation of
pairs of violins and violas with a single cello. The first movement, Allegro con moto, is a conventional sonata
form whose secondary theme appears in various transformations in the final Allegro vivace. The second
movement, Andante sostenuto, is in the key of F major and demonstrates Mendelssohn's fondness for arranging
movements in third-related keys. As in the Octet, the Scherzo of the Quintet, marked Allegro di molto, is in duple
meter and makes use of thematic imitation. The dynamics (predominantly pianissimo) and articulation (sempre
staccato) recall the Scherzo of Op. 20. Though composed in 1826, the String Quintet did not appear in print until
it was issued by Simrock of Berlin in 1832. This edition differs in several respects from the original version. For
its publication, Mendelssohn inserted the second movement Intermezzo, moved the Scherzo from second to third
place, and deleted the minuet and trio. The Intermezzo, which was composed in the year that the Quintet was
published, is an elegy for Eduard Rietz who died on 22 January of that year.

Page 121 →

Two works from Mendelssohn's youth remain to be discussed; the Piano Trio in C minor, whose four movements
must have been written sometime around 1820, and the String Quartet in E-flat of 1823. The Piano Trio is an
unusual one because it uses an ensemble of violin, viola, and piano instead of the more usual combination of
violin, cello, and piano.10 In Mendelssohn's later piano trios, the D-minor Trio, Op. 49 and the C-minor Trio, Op.
66, he used the conventional scoring.

MENDELSSOHN'S STRING QUARTETS

The popular conception of Mendelssohn's string quartet production reckons seven works for this medium: the A-
minor Quartet, Op. 13 (1827), the E-flat major Quartet, Op. 12 (1829), the E-minor Quartet, Op. 44, No. 2 (1837),
the E-flat major Quartet, Op. 44, No. 3 (1838), the D-major Quartet, Op. 44, No. 1 (1838), the F-minor Quartet,
Op. 80 (1847), and the Quartet in E major, Op. 81 (1847). This list neglects the String Quartet in E-flat of 1823,
but it includes the conglomeration of quartet movements that was pasted together by Breitkopf und Härtel and
published after the composer's death as Op. 81. The opening Andante of this quartet, a set of variations in E major,
and the second movement, a scherzo in A minor, were both composed in the last year of Mendelssohn's life as part
of a projected but ultimately unfinished quartet. The two remaining movements, a Capriccio and a Fugue, were
written in 1843 and 1827 respectively. From a formal and stylistic point of view, the combination of these diverse
pieces is unconvincing. The tonality of the final movement is E-flat major. Mendelssohn invariably wrote the first
and last movements of mulimovement cycles in the same key; hence, if the Op. 81 Quartet is to be performed at
all, at the very least a transposition of the finale from E-flat to E major would be necessary. Even if someone were
to make this transposition, Mendelssohn's style of 1827 differs from that of 1847.

The Quartet in E-flat, a youthful work without opus number, is an impressive piece.11 The high quality of the
writing throughout all movements lends support to Eric Werner's supposition that this quartet was performed for
Louis Spohr when Mendelssohn visited him in Kassel in the company of his mentor, Zelter.12 The composer's
fondness for contrapuntal writing is apparent in the canonic passages of the second movement and the finale,
which is a double fugue with stretto, augmentation, and other details. Mendelssohn's mastery of Classical pattern
forms can be seen with equal clarity, particularly in the strict construction of the sonata-allegro design of Page 122
→the first movement. The writing for strings is idiomatic, but from time to time the first violin gets a
disproportionate amount of attention.

Mendelssohn achieved mastery of the string quartet as a genre in his A-minor Quartet, Op. 13, which is traditional
in its broad architectural design as well as in the forms of its individual movements. A more progressive feature,
and one that came to be a hallmark of the Romantic style, is the use of thematic recurrence. The motivic core that
dominates all four movements of the piece is the three-note figure that opens Mendelssohn's setting of Johann
Gustav Droysen poem “Frage,” the first in his set of Twelve Songs, Op. 9. Because of the prominence of this
motif, the quartet may have some sort of programmatic significance.

The quartet opens with an adagio introduction in triple meter, in which the “Frage” motif is heard for the first time
(meas. 13–15). The viola, which initiates many of the most important themes throughout, effects the transition to
the allegro vivace tempo of the movement proper. The second movement, Adagio non lento, shows Mendelssohn's
facility with counterpoint. The fugue subject of the second movement is taken up again, albeit in a thematic
transformation, in the finale of the quartet. Mendelssohn replaces the conventional third movement with an
Intermezzo at the tempo allegro di molto. The final movement, marked presto, begins in the subdominant key and
eventually works its way back to the tonic. The fugue subject of the second movement returns in its original form
(stated now by the first violin) in the transitional recitative leading to the restatement of the quartet's opening
adagio.

The Quartet in E-flat, Op. 12—written after the Op. 13 quartet—also makes extensive use of cyclic recurrence.
Similar too is the replacement of the minuet by a movement here designated as “Canzonetta.” The finale uses
progressive tonality, beginning in C minor and closing in the tonic major, E-flat.

These two quartets display most progressive conceptions. The use of thematic recurrence, particularly in the A-
minor Quartet, actually anticipates developments of the mid-nineteenth century. Mendelssohn's early application
of this device demonstrates his awareness of new directions in composition at the time. The prominence of cyclic
composition in Mendelssohn's early works may also be indicative of a strong influence exerted upon him by
Ludwig Berger (1777–1839), a pianist, pedagogue, and resident of Berlin, who was the piano instructor for young
Felix and his sister, Fanny. The model of von Weber's Der Freischütz (1821) may also have been influential.

The published ordering of the three quartets in Op. 44 does not reflect Page 124 →the chronology of their
composition. Op. 44, No. 2 in E minor was completed in June 1837; Op. 44, No. 3 in E-flat followed in February
1838; Op. 44, No. 1, the D-major Quartet, was last in July 1838. Mendelssohn probably placed the D-major
Quartet in first position when the set was published by Breitkopf und Härtel because it approximates the manner
of the Viennese Classicists.

Page 123 →

At the time Mendelssohn wrote the Op. 44 quartets, he was conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. The
concertmaster was Ferdinand David (1810-1873), a close personal friend of Mendelssohn's and an experienced
quartet player whom Mendelssohn appointed in 1843 as instructor of violin at the Leipzig Conservatory.
Mendelssohn not only founded this institution, but also acted as its first director. He also engaged Robert
Schumann as a member of that faculty for a brief time.

David was responsible for the first professional chamber music concerts in Leipzig.13 His quartet premiered Op.
44, Nos. 2 and 3 at the Gewandhaus. Robert Schumann, in his glowing remarks about Mendelssohn's new
quartets, informs us that the other players in the ensemble were [Karl Wilhelm] Ulrich on second violin, [Karl
Traugott] Queisser on viola, and [Friedrich Wilhelm] Grenser on cello.14

Though less pervasive than in the A-minor Quartet, Op. 13, cyclic organization plays an important role in Op. 44,
particularly in the third Quartet in E-flat, which is unified by a four-note motif that appears in the first, third, and
fourth movements. In other respects, the quartets of Op. 44 are conservative. One scholar has called the set
downright “anachronistic.”15

Mendelssohn's last quartet, Op. 80 in F minor, is a unique work. Most of the piece was composed in the summer
of 1847 during Mendelssohn's vacation at Interlaken, Switzerland. He continued to refine the score until
September. The vacation was much needed: Felix's sister, Fanny Cäcilie Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hensel
(1805-1847), had died on 14 May. Felix had been closer to her than to any other human being, with the possible
exception of his wife, Cécile Jeanrenaud. Fanny shared Felix's interest in music; had studied piano with Ludwig
Berger; and had composed chamber pieces of her own including the Piano Quartet in A-flat (1822), the Adagio in
E major for violin and piano (1823), a Fantasia in G minor (ca. 1830) and the Capriccio in A-flat major (1829),
both for cello and piano, the String Quartet in E-flat 1834), and the Piano Trio in D minor (1846), which was
published in 1850 as Op. 11.16 Felix's letters to her often contain discussions of pieces that he was working on at
the time. Her early death robbed Felix of a beloved sister, trusted friend, confidant, and colleague.

Mendelssohn's wild despair resulting from Fanny's death is apparent Page 125 →throughout the F-minor Quartet.
The overriding affection throughout the piece is rage. Only in the third movement, an Adagio in A-flat major, do
we find the tender melancholy that Mendelssohn expresses so often in his music. Traditional formal patterns are
maintained—especially in the sonatas that constitute the first and last movements—but the smaller, harmonic
components within the larger forms are articulated by figuration rather than melodies. Tremolando, syncopation,
and harmonic audacities represent torrents of emotion. Double stops are used extensively, particularly in the
Adagio and toward the close of the finale.

MENDELSSOHN'S LATE ENSEMBLE SONATAS

Mendelssohn's late works were written after 1833, the year in which he accepted a full-time position as conductor
of the Düsseldorf Music and Theater Society and bid adieu to his childhood home in Berlin. In that same year,
Mendelssohn composed his two Konzertstücke, Opp. 113 and 114, for clarinet, basset horn, and piano. These two
works are fundamentally sonatas for piano with two obbligato instruments. Both have a three-movement plan of
fast, moderate, fast. Though Op. 113 is somewhat diminutive in comparison with Mendelssohn's other ensemble
sonatas, Op. 114 is proportioned in similar manner to the sonatas that we have already discussed. Both pieces
were written specifically for Heinrich Joseph Baermann (1784-1847) and his son, Carl (1810-1885). The elder
Baermann was perhaps the best-known clarinetist of the day. He was on intimate terms with Carl Maria von
Weber, whose clarinet compositions he popularized throughout Europe. The vast majority of von Weber's clarinet
pieces were written for and dedicated to Baermann. Meyerbeer was also acquainted with Baermann and composed
the obbligato part in his cantata Gli amori di Teolinda for him.
Interesting, too, are the Sonatas, Opp. 45 and 58, for cello and piano, which Mendelssohn composed in 1838 and
1843 respectively. The first of these is in the key of B-flat major and exhibits the three-movement format that the
composer preferred in pieces of this sort. The outer movements are bursting with energy, and both conclude with
dazzling figuration for the bravura pianist. The movements are further related by their main themes: the opening
theme of the third movement is a variant of the inversion of the main theme of the first movement. The
preservation in the last movement's theme of the salient rhythms and intervals that characterized the first
movement's theme make this relationship unmistakable. The polarized tonalities of the sonata-form first
movement unfold as an arpeggiationPage 126 → of the tonic triad. The theme associated with the key of D is
reminiscent of Schubert's Fantasy in F minor, Op. 103, in its juxtaposition of duplet and triplet subdivision of the
beat. Within this sonata form, we find greater tonal variety than had been characteristic of eighteenth-century
sonatas. Tonal plateaus are similarly less obvious because harmonic stability is immediately weakened by the
coloristic and expressive use of chromatically altered tones. Felix composed the piece for his younger brother,
Paul Hermann (1813-1874), who was an amateur cellist. Paul, incidentally, was entrusted by Felix's widow with
the task of editing the various manuscript compositions that remained in the composer's estate.17 He also edited
and published a good deal of Felix's correspondence with members of the immediate family.

The Sonata in D major, Op. 58, was dedicated to Count Matwej Jurjewitsch Wielhorski (1794-1866). Wielhorski's
musical activities were extensive, and as a young man he studied cello with Bernhard Heinrich Romberg
(1767-1841). In a comparison with the Sonata in B-flat, Op. 45, the D-major Sonata has been described as “a
bigger, more grandiose work in four movements.”18 Mendelssohn characteristically preferred the three-movement
design in his ensemble sonatas. Although the B-flat Sonata contains four sets of double-bar lines, the tempo
indications of the “four movements” are Allegro assai vivace; Allegretto scherzando; Adagio; and Molto Allegro e
vivace. The Adagio, in the key of G major utilizes instrumental recitative. The piano part is generally
homophonic, again suggesting the texture of recitative. The keyboard writing bears numerous instructions for
coloristic effects, such as arpeggiando col Pedale, una corda, and tutte le corde, in addition to the standard sorts
of dynamic instructions. The final, and perhaps most significant instruction, is the indication attacca subito. The
movement that follows opens on a fully-diminished seventh-chord in the key of D major and concludes in the
tonic key, B-flat major; thus, Op. 58 is better understood as a three-movement structure with a slow introduction
to the last movement.

TWO LATE MASTERPIECES

In 1845, Mendelssohn composed two of his finest chamber works, the String Quintet in B-flat major, Op. 87, and
the Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 66. In its rich textures, Op. 87 suggests orchestral writing. The second viola is used
in places to double the cello part an octave higher, and double stops are plentiful in all four movements.

Page 127 →

The first movement, Allegro vivace, features the first violin against tremolando chords in the lower four string
parts. Though the movement is written in sonata form, Mendelssohn's approach to that form is more liberal than in
his early works. The exposition, which continues up to measure 126, opens with a bold arpeggio figure in the first
violin. The principal theme tumbles into triplet figuration that suggests a customary transition section by force of
its harmonic mobility; nevertheless, all of this rhythmic and harmonic motion ultimately returns to the key of B-
flat major and a repetition of the opening arpeggio figure in measure 41. A contrasting theme in F major is
introduced in measure 53. The forte dynamic is replaced with piano; the subdivision of the beat into eighth notes
is replaced with more deliberate quarter-note motion; and the diatonic arpeggios are abandoned in favor of
chromatically colored imitations; nevertheless, the theme was suggested earlier in the quarter-note figure that
appeared in the first violin part in measures ii and 12. The exposition is not repeated, nor is it set off from the
second half of the piece by the conventional double-bar line. The recapitulation (fortissimo, meas. 226), is
rewritten with the principal theme now in the second violin, while the tonic chord supporting the theme is placed
in first inversion in order to preserve the forward motion created by the descending bass line. The coda (meas.
350) combines the triplet figuration in the first violin with the final appearance of the arpeggio theme in the
second violin. Double stops in all parts save the cello line produce a rich, eight-part texture in the last several bars,
and bring the movement to a triumphant close.
The inner movements are two of Mendelssohn's finest. The Andante scherzando is a melodious affair in duple
compound meter and set in the relative minor key. Its simplicity is interrupted from time to time with imitative
passages—all easy to follow since Mendelssohn begins the figure with a trill and spaces the imitations at the
distance of a single bar. The Adagio e lento movement begins in D minor, but gives way to the major mode of that
key in the last seventeen measures. Though the first violin is the principal melodic voice, motifs from the main
themes frequently migrate to the lower strings. The accompanimental figuration is pervaded by throbbing sixty-
fourth and thirty-second notes, Lombardic rhythm, frequent double stops, and dramatic tremolandos that
ultimately die away in a tranquillo closing.

The arpeggiated main theme and the first-inversion sonority of the first movement's exposition provided
Mendelssohn with the opening theme of the finale, which outlines a descending B-flat major triad, but now
decoratedPage 128 → by neighboring tones within a brilliant cascade of sixteenth notes. Mendelssohn's use here
of rondo form includes several statements of the refrain that are actually subtle variants of the original.

The C-minor Piano Trio, Op. 66, was completed in April 1845. When published a year later, it bore a dedication
to Louis Spohr. In its formal structure, the piece is quite conservative. The four movements consist of a sonata, a
tuneful slow movement reminiscent of his “songs without words,” a delicate scherzo, and a rondo finale.

The thematic construction of the piece is fascinating. The opening piano theme appears in diminution as a
countersubject to a second theme that Mendelssohn introduces in the strings while still in the tonic key. In his
discussion of this piece, Basil Smallman notes several distinctive features: The second theme of the fourth
movement later appears in augmentation as the third theme; this augmented version of the theme closely
resembles the Lutheran chorale melody, Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ. In addition, “The composer restricts the
piano's role quite considerably in his search for a more homogeneous texture.”19

Mendelssohn was one of the most influential musicians of the early nineteenth century. His reputation was an
international one. As a composer, pianist, and conductor too, he was much in demand—particularly in England. It
was for the Philharmonic Society of London that he composed his Fourth Symphony 1833). Shortly after his
death, the “Mendelssohn Scholarship” funds were put in place, and the youthful Arthur Sullivan won that prize in
1856. Indeed, the pages of Sullivan's First Symphony are a tribute to the Mendelssohnian style from the first bar
of the opening movement to the final fermata of the last. In his native land, Mendelssohn's work as a conductor
and as founder and director of the Leipzig Conservatory was complemented by his unflagging support and
encouragement for his friend and colleague Robert Schumann.

THE CHAMBER MUSIC OF ROBERT SCHUMANN

Schumann's first personal contact with Mendelssohn took place at the home of Carl and Henriette Voigt shortly
after Mendelssohn's debut with the Gewandhaus Orchestra.20 Mendelssohn frequently performed Schumann's
compositions, and he “had a profound influence in advising him what kind of music to write and how.” They
became close friends in a short time. They regularly discussed “fairly private matters, including their dreams, their
childhoods, and their feelings about mutual friends and acquaintances. Schumann (1810-1856) also spoke with
Mendelssohn about Page 129 →marriage.”21 They shared an enthusiasm for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach,
and Mendelssohn's performance of the St. Matthew Passion in Berlin in 1829 did much to enhance Bach's
reputation in the nineteenth century. Later, in Leipzig, Mendelssohn conducted the work in 1841, again with great
success. Subsequent concerts that Mendelssohn gave with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and as organ soloist at the
Thomaskirche drew additional interest. Schumann pressed the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik into service for Bach
scholarship, and, in 1850, he joined forces with Carl Friedrich Becker (1804-1877), Otto Jahn (1813-1869),
Moritz Hauptmann (1792-1868), and the firm of Breitkopf und Härtel to form the Bach Gesellschaft (Bach
society), which published the complete works of Bach in forty-six volumes. Schumann's fascination with Bach's
music had far-reaching consequences. Not only did Schumann compose a set of six fugues using B, A, C, H (i.e.,
B-flat, A, C, B-natural) as a subject, but also, he developed great facility in using contrapuntal textures.22

Though Mendelssohn was only a year older than Schumann, the former man's career as a composer was already
well under way in 1835, whereas the latter had composed rather little. Schumann's significant scores to that date
included Papillons, finished in 1831, while 1835 saw the completion of the First Piano Sonata and Carnaval. He
had founded the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1834, and he was active as its editor and principal music critic until
1844.

Schumann was in the habit of using pseudonyms for the articles he wrote for the Zeitschrift. His quiet, thoughtful,
and introspective writings were attributed to a figure named “Eusebius.” The spontaneous outbursts of a youthful
and energetic mind, on the other hand, were signed with the name “Florestan.” These noms de plume appear not
only in his prose writings, but also as cryptograms in his music.

Schumann was an eccentric individual. His maturity was an alternation between bursts of creative energy and fits
of despair and depression; perhaps the duality of Schumann's own personality provided him with the imaginary
figures Eusebius and Florestan. Schumann composed with ease during his periods of contentment, but when
depressed, he produced little.

In January 1854, he suffered a mental breakdown and sought psychiatric aid. Ultimately, he died in a mental
asylum in Endenich, near Bonn. In his last letter to his wife Clara Wieck Schumann (1819-1896), he sent “a
drawing of Felix Mendelssohn…[to] put it into the Album. A priceless memento!”23 That Schumann's final
thoughts turned to his old friend and colleague demonstrates how highly he valued Mendelssohn's artistic insights
and personal trust.

Page 130 →

Schumann seems to have explored musical genres in a systematic way, as though perfecting one medium before
progressing to the next. Chamber music was the focus of his attention during 1842. He had written a Piano Quartet
in C minor as early as 182 9, but he neither published it nor sought to have it performed. Apparently he composed
no other chamber pieces until 1842.

Mendelssohn's string quartets, Op. 44, were partly responsible for Schumann's renewed interest in chamber music.
Soon after their appearance, Schumann mentioned the idea of writing some quartets of his own to Clara. She
asked him the simple but important question: “Do you know enough about the instruments.”24 Schumann decided
that he did not, and so, the quartet project was held off until 1842. In the meantime, Schumann studied
orchestration, and he actually began to learn how to play the violin.

The three quartets of Schumann's Op. 41 were dedicated to Mendelssohn. Given Mendelssohn's own devotion to
the even-handed, sanguine formal designs of the Classical masters, it is hardly surprising that Schumann's quartets
seem quite self-consciously to perpetuate the pattern forms of the later eighteenth century.

Schumann's studies [of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven]…led him to extract general structural
principles and apply them thoroughly within his own music, so that his sonata-form movements, in
particular, unfold with a textbook clarity that is scarcely to be found in any “real” classical music.25

Schumann began his quartets of Op. 41 during the month of June “in a whirlwind of enthusiasm, sometimes
beginning a new movement of one quartet before he had even finished the preceding quartet.”26 His birthday was
on the eighth of that month, and by June 22, he had completed the Amajor Quartet, which appeared in third place
in the original publication. The first performance of the three quartets took place on 13 September 1842, the day
on which Clara Schumann celebrated her twenty-third birthday.

The pieces were composed in rapid succession and exhibit certain melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic similarities,
such as the singular pertinacity of the tonalities of F and A—both in the major and minor modes—throughout the
three quartets. The First Quartet opens with an introduction in A minor (Andante espressivo) that leads to a
sonata-form movement in F major (Allegro) beginning in measure 34. Paul Griffiths has noted that this tonal plan
was used earlier but in reverse by Chopin in his Second Ballade.27 Page 131 →Though usually placed in second
position within sonata-allegro movements, the lyrical theme appears first in Chopin's piece (in the key of F major).
Chopin relocates the transition to the secondary key (A minor) to the conclusion of the exposition, where it leads
to a drastically abbreviated restatement of the exposition's polarization of F major and A minor. Following the
development section, the recapitulation states the furious A-minor theme first. In the virtuosic coda, a ruined
fragment of the opening lyrical melody, now transposed from the key of F to A and changed in mode from major
to minor appears in the final measures of the piece. This Ballade is one of the most ingenious and original
applications of sonata form in the pages of early Romantic music.

That Schumann knew Chopin's Ballade is clear: Chopin dedicated the piece to him. What is most remarkable is
the fact that the Ballade is almost prophetic of Schumann's life, for it contains in its opening F-major theme the
essence of the gentle poet and quiet thinker, Eusebius, while the A-minor figuration (marked con fuoco) embodies
in its unsettled rhythms and aggressive character the person of Florestan. In the duel between these diametrically
opposed personae, the delicacy of Eusebius is ultimately crushed by the reckless brutality of Florestan.

Whereas Chopin's Ballade is a single continuous movement beginning in F major and concluding in A minor,
Schumann's Quartet is in four distinct movements, each separated by double-bar lines. Schumann's piece begins in
A minor and ends in A major. This shift represents a change of mode, but not of tonality. At the same time, the
principal tonality of the first movement is F major, not A minor. The second movement, a Scherzo with a
contrasting Intermezzo, is in A minor. The third movement (Adagio) fluctuates between two tonal centers, D
minor and F major; but the latter key ultimately wins out. The finale, which is a sonata-form movement, begins in
A minor but concludes in the major mode.

The structural function of the first movement's introduction is curious. It is not uncommon for introductions to
skirt around the main key of the movement to follow. In Classical compositions, the key of the dominant was
regularly used for this purpose. Composers of the Romantic era often replaced the tonic-dominant axis with
polarized tonalities arranged in thirds. What is so puzzling about this quartet, though, is the fact that in moving
from the first to the fourth movement, we progress from F major to A major. On the basis of this information, we
might conjecture that the introduction in A minor was actually added by Schumann after the four large movements
were completed in order to bring the cycle into conformity with the tradition of beginning and ending an
instrumental piece in Page 132 →the same key; however, this hypothesis seems unlikely since the nature of the
first movement's principal theme is such that it would not be suitable as an opening. In short, though we may call
it the “principal” theme of the sonata form, it does not possess the character of an opening theme.

Despite the unusual tonal design of Schumann's quartet, it is, in some respects, strikingly conservative. The first
movement, in 6/8 meter, uses sonata form in the traditional manner. The exposition, which is to be repeated,
contains two tonal levels with contrasting themes associated with each. The principal theme begins with a dotted
quarter-note tied over the middle of the bar and then descends by step through the interval of a third. The
secondary key (C major) and its concomitant theme are introduced in measure 99. This theme, though contrasting,
is related to the opening motif, since the new theme begins with the same rhythmic motif, but it proceeds in the
opposite direction from the first theme. An interesting counter subject consisting of iambic figures punctuated by
eighth-note rests is also introduced at this point. The development and recapitulation sections proceed in a
straightforward manner.

The regularity of formal detail within the individual movements of Schumann's quartets is perhaps best
understood in light of the dedication to Mendelssohn, who was a champion of old traditions. Schumann's
romanticism may have been tempered by the particularly Classical approach that Mendelssohn used in his own
quartets of Op. 41. Schumann's emulation of Mendelssohn's quartets is also apparent in subtle details in the set of
three quartets. For example, Mendelssohn's scherzos were not always in triple meter. Similarly, Schumann's
scherzo in Op. 41, No. 1 substitutes 6/8 meter for simple triple meter. Likewise, the Intermezzo that takes the
place of the conventional trio is in alla breve. Moreover, the very term Intermezzo may have been borrowed from
Mendelssohn, since he replaced the minuet and trio with an intermezzo in his Piano Quartet in F minor, Op. 2.
Finally, it was characteristic for Schumann to imbue his compositions with subtle allusions to persons, places, and
events that were important to him. This proclivity can be seen in his Op. 1, the Theme and Variations on the Name
“Abegg,” the Carnaval, Op. 9, the Six Fugues on the Name of BACH, Op. 60, and many other pieces that employ
cryptograms. It may be that Schumann hoped to make the dedication of his quartets to Mendelssohn the more
meaningful by consciously imitating his friend's compositional manner.

An interesting musical allusion in the scherzo of Schumann's First Quartet is a borrowing from the music of
Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861), a composer little known to present-day audiences, but who Page 133 →enjoyed
an international reputation during his lifetime largely on account of his thirteen operas. Of these, Der Vampyr
(1827) and Hans Heiling 1832) were the most popular. Though he made his livelihood as a stage composer and
conductor in Dresden and Leipzig, he also wrote a substantial amount of chamber music, including piano quartets
and trios, duets for violin and piano, music for piano four hands, and string quartets. In his study of the piano trio
as a genre, Basil Smallman notes that “Schumann wrote a particularly favourable review of Marschner's G minor
[piano] trio [Op. 111] in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik” and further that Schumann “apparently took its scherzo as
the model for the equivalent movement in his own A minor string quartet, Op. 41, No. 1.”28

The Adagio of Schumann's First Quartet is one of his finest efforts in any medium. The recitative-like opening in
D minor gives way to a movement in which slow-moving themes in half notes are played against syncopated
figures in sixteenth notes, convoluted with ties. The first and second violins introduce the disjunct, angular, slow
theme (doubled at the octave) while the cello plays an ascending, stepwise figure against more active viola
figuration. In the course of the movement, the roles are reversed: the first violin line becomes the cello part (m.
20) and the viola plays the ascending, stepwise figure but now beneath the sixteenth-note movement in the first
violin part. A transposed permutation of a similar type appears in measures 41 and following. The movement is
rounded off by a reappearance of the opening recitative with a subtle extension of the passage in the viola part.
The contrapuntal texture of this movement may have been intended as a simultaneous act of homage to
Mendelssohn and Bach.

The finale, marked presto, is a terse sonata form in A minor with the secondary theme appearing in measure 63
(with the instruction marcatissimo) in the key of C major. The recapitulation (m. 218) enriches the material of the
exposition with double and triple stops, doublings, and downward transpositions of an octave that create a rich,
almost orchestral sonority. Noteworthy, too, are the thematic transformations of the secondary theme that appear
in measure 238 and following. Again, contrapuntal devices are at work, and the cello part (m. 247) bears a
paraphrase of the inversion of the secondary theme. It may well be the polyphonic ingenuity of this quartet that led
Schumann to place it as the first in the set.

The Second Quartet in Op. 41, in F major, commences with a sonata-form movement (Allegro vivace) that is
unusual in several respects: the opening theme appears in the first violin, but is subjected to developmental
treatment (i.e., stretto between the second violin and the first) already in measures 33 and following of the
exposition; further, Schumann hardly can Page 134 →be said to have provided the conventional secondary and
closing themes. The exposition terminates with a canonic passage that leads to a closing motif in pairs of slurred
eighth-notes. The development section is cleverly introduced by an Italian-sixth sonority that gives way to motivic
manipulations of the opening theme. The recapitulation is literal at first. In this fashion, Schumann leads us into a
false sense of security; however, the slurred eighth-notes of the closing motif appear, quite surprisingly, in the key
of C. In another fascinating léger de main, Schumann employs the canonic imitations—now placed after rather
than before the closing motif—in order to return to the tonic key of F major. At this point, the closing motif is
stated in the “correct” key, and the movement proceeds to a satisfying close.

The lyric, second movement, in 12/8 time, is cast in the third-related key of A-flat major and bears the legend
Andante, quasi Variazioni (slow, as if variations). The instruction is a puzzling one, because the movement clearly
is a set of five variations with a coda. Schumann's trepidation in committing to the term variation stems from
several unorthodox features of the movement. The theme is curious because of its length: thirty-two measures of
this 112-measure movement. Bizarre, too, is the antiphonal construction of the theme. The melody is not a
continuous one; instead, the tune regularly halts for half-measure intervals during which the inner voices either
continue or echo important motifs; syncopations appear in one voice or another in every single measure. As the
statement of the theme progresses, these syncopations become more prevalent, and beginning in measure 16, they
are ubiquitous. Schumann calls attention to the pervasive nature of these syncopations with the performance
instruction un poco marcato (which, incidentally, should probably appear in the first violin part in measure 20).
In conventional variations of the Classical era, each variation retained the harmonic design and phrase structure of
the original, and a rhythmic crescendo was often employed in progressing from one variation to the next. In
variations of this sort, the pulse remains the same, but the subdivision becomes ever smaller, moving, for example,
from a theme in quarter notes, to a variation in eighth notes, to another in triplets, to a third in sixteenth notes, and
so on. Schumann avoids this conventional rhythmic design; instead, the central variation in his set of five bears the
tempo indication Molto piÙ lento. This variation is a mere twelve measures long—shorter than the original theme.
Here, the variation's fluid tempo and its concomitant reduction in length (by measures) show why Schumann was
Page 135 →reluctant to head the movement with the designation variations. The design of this third variation
shows that Schumann thought in terms of the duration perceived by the listener rather than in terms of
symmetrical numbers of measures.

The above-cited eccentricities may account for Schumann's use of the term quasi; but he was not the first
composer who included this alluring word in his performance instructions. As a pianist, Schumann could hardly
have forgotten the most notorious “quasi” piece in the repertoire: Beethoven's Op. 27, No. 2, the famous
Moonlight Sonata, which the composer called a Sonata quasi una fantasia.

Schumann derived his metrical plan for the Quartet movement from the Sonata's first movement. Beethoven's
Adagio sostentuo is notated in cut time with triplet subdivisions of each beat and corresponds to Schumann's use
of 12/8 time. The form of Schumann's Quartet movement likewise shows a debt to Beethoven's sonata, which is
cast in an A-B-A form, with the A sections distinguished by a melody consisting of a dotted-rhythm pickup
leading to a sustained note. The brief central portion takes place over a G-sharp pedal point, and the rhythmic
movement of its melody consists of even quarter-notes drawn from a texture of triplet arpeggios. Schumann's
movement parodies the A-B-A form of Beethoven's: The theme and the second variation are restated in altered
form as the fifth variation and coda. The first variation, which acts as an interlude, is not accounted for in
Schumann's varied restatement of the A section. The central portion, variations three and four, are set apart from
the surrounding material by new tempo indications: Molto piÙ lento and Un poco piÙ vivace respectively.

As we have already remarked, syncopations appear in every measure of Schumann's variations, and, in many
cases, these syncopations are in more than one voice. The source of this idea is close at hand: The second
movement of Op. 27, No. 2, the minuet and trio (Allegretto) exhibits this same preoccupation with syncopated
figures. Beethoven's Trio also contains a syncopation in every single measure. Perhaps Schumann's use of the
word quasi in describing his variations was intended as an allusion to his model. If so, the hidden message would
have been understood by Mendelssohn.

Schumann's Scherzo is an A-B-A form expanded by a coda of twenty-five measures. The arpeggio figures that
serve as the principal subject of the C-minor Scherzo are of pianistic origin. One might again think of Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata as the inspiration, for its last movement is nothing more than an etude devoted to arpeggios
played at lightning Page 136 →speed. Another curious feature of Schumann's Scherzo is the fact that its C-major
Trio is actually in 2/4 meter. As we know, Mendelssohn was also fond of scherzos in meters other than simple
triple time.

As we have pointed out in our discussion of Beethoven's chamber music, he was fond of employing expanded
scherzo-and-trio form, with either an A: || BA: || form or a real five-section design that might be represented A-B-
A-B-A. The coda of Schumann's Scherzo seems to take these formal plans as a point of departure for an
interesting twist: the duple meter and characteristic thematic material of the Trio reappear; however, the 6/8 theme
of the Scherzo section is intertwined with these musical gestures so that we have, in effect, a fully stated A-B-A
plan with simultaneous, abbreviated restatements of B and A in the coda.

The finale of the F-major Quartet is a concise, sonata-allegro form (the recapitulation appears at the a tempo
designation). It is, perhaps, an anachronistic feature that both halves of the binary form are repeated. Less
conventional is the introduction of a descending scalar motif for the cello in the concluding measures of the
development section (recalled later in the coda) which treats this motif imitatively—first in contrary motion
between cello and first violin, and then in the two violins played off against the lower two strings. The prodigal
use in the coda of double stops in all parts gives the conclusion of the piece a confident, assertive character.
The Third Quartet, in A major, is the most innovative. It commences with a seven-measure introduction (Andante
espressivo) that contains several musical gestures that Schumann exploits during the course of this sonata-form
movement. The interval of a falling fifth figures in the introduction as well as in the opening theme of the
movement proper (Allegro molto moderato). The falling-fifth motif appears in the cello part in the concluding
measure of the movement. Similarly, the rhythmic figure of a dotted eighth plus sixteenth (which appears at the
end the first measure of the first violin part) forms an essential building block for the thematic material of all four
movements. Schumann's introduction obscures the principal tonality of the piece by circling around the secondary
dominant of A major, rather than elaborating the dominant chord of the home key. Indeed, as the Allegro portion
begins, we hear a secondary-dominant-seventh cord in first inversion that wends its way to a firm cadence in A
major three measures later. The cadence, incidentally, is delayed by a 4-3 suspension in the viola part.

The cello part is pitched unusually high throughout the movement. Curious, too, is the secondary theme in the key
of C-sharp minor. The terse development section is followed by an unusual recapitulation (again, Page 137
→signaled by the indication a tempo) that reverses the order of themes as they had appeared in the exposition.
This palindromic reprise dispenses with much of the music that had been heard in the first key area of the
exposition, presumably owing to the fact that these ideas had already been treated in the development section.

The second movement (Assai agitato), in 3/8 time, is in the key of F-sharp minor. It is a hybrid one containing the
characteristic triple meter and rhythmic drive of a scherzo; yet, formally, it is a set of four variations with a coda
that offers an array of harmonic surprises. The theme—or, at least, the material that occupies the first forty-eight
measures—is tuneful, but somewhat disconcerting owing to the fact that the melodic movement is riddled with
syncopations. The first variation, which continues at the opening pace, is a polyphonic elaboration of a motif. This
segment of forty-eight measures has the character of an old canzona. The second variation (L'istesso tempo) shifts
to 2/4 meter and presents a more serious, ricercar-like series of imitations. The third variation, returning to 3/8
time, is marked Un poco Adagio. Here, for the first time, we can perceive the theme that has only been hinted at
up to this point.

The final variation (Tempo risoluto), in 3/4 meter, is expansive and assertive, but shorter than any of the previous
variations. The abbreviated variation leads to a coda of striking harmonic density. While the first violin toys with
the intervals of fifths and fourths falling in a cascade from F2, the inner voices move chromatically through a
series of harmonic excursions that involve alternately the lowered and natural forms of the third of the tonic chord.
Ultimately, the major form of the triad wins out. An interesting detail may be seen in the final measure of the first
violin part, where the interval of an ascending fourth appears. This is not only a key motif in the main theme of the
movement as it appears in the third variation, but also, the inversion of the descending fifth heard in the cello part
at the conclusion of the first movement.

The third movement (Adagio molto) is in common time and the key of D major. It is one of Schumann's most
complex inner movements. Two themes dominate the piece. The first, (Assai agitato), mostly in conjunct motion,
is marked sempre espressivo, and exhibits the sort of plaintive melody familiar to us from Schumann's songs like
“Seit ich ihn geseh'n,” from Frauenliebe und Leben. The second theme is actually a six-note motif rather than a
genuine melody, but the six notes are not all presented straightaway. Instead, Schumann prefigures the full
statement of the motif with two-and three-note figures derived from it. These figures give unity to the quartet as a
whole because they incorporate the intervals of rising Page 138 →fourths and falling fifths heard in earlier
movements. Throughout the third movement, the two themes appear in various keys and with subtly modified
figuration. The supple rhythmic figures in the inner voices—seldom repeated in exactly the same fashion—are
particularly striking. The movement, though not a strict sonata form, includes a recapitulation when the principal
theme returns (espressivo) harmonized with a first-inversion D-major triad. Here the bass line, originally played
arco by the cello, is thoroughly rewritten with flowing, triplet filigree.

The finale, marked Allegro molto vivace and in cut time, is one of Schumann's most energetic creations. The
opening theme is characterized by syncopated figures and lively, dotted rhythms. Because of its distinctive profile,
this opening idea is easily recognized at each appearance—and it reappears six times. Though some commentators
have associated this recurring material with rondo form, the movement lacks the symmetrical plan and tonal
stability of a conventional rondo.29 Instead, we might prefer to think in terms of Baroque ritornello structures,
which allowed abbreviation, transposition, and fragmentation.

Schumann's formal plan might be designated with the letters A-B-A-C-A-D-A-B-A-C-A-D'-A-Coda. With the
exception of transposition, the repetitions of the B and C sections preserve the original material. The D section,
however, which was marked Quasi Trio at its first appearance, is significantly altered at its return. The triplet
figuration and repeat signs are dropped, and the material is transposed from F major to E major. In the course of
the varied restatement, E major assumes the role of dominant, and the last eight measures of the second Trio are
cast in A major, thereby effecting a smooth transition to the final statement of the refrain. The coda derives from
the vigorous dotted rhythms of the ritornello and the repeated-note triplets of episode C.

SCHUMANN'S CHAMBER MUSIC AFTER THE QUARTETS

In discussing the Quartets of Op. 41, we have noted a number of similarities to well-known pieces by Classical
masters. Most of these models were to be found in works for solo piano. After completing Op. 41, Schumann
never returned to the string quartet as a medium for his chamber music. Schumann's later chamber scores are
remarkably diverse, but they invariably include piano. These later works include both large-scale pieces in three or
four movements in traditional pattern forms as well as collections of miniatures arranged as instrumental cycles.

The large-scale works include the three piano trios: one in D minor, Page 139 →Op. 63 (1847), another in F
major, Op. 80 (1847), and the G-minor Trio, Op. 110 (1851).30 In addition, there are the three sonatas for violin
and piano: A minor, Op. 105; D minor, Op. 121 (both 1851); and the posthumous A-minor Sonata, which uses
two movements Schumann wrote in 1853 for a collaborative work including movements by Johannes Brahms and
Albert Dietrich and dedicated to Joseph Joachim.

The strengths of Schumann's piano trios are their rich and inventive use of contrapuntal textures, their ingenious
and varied formal designs, and their integration of cyclic procedures and thematic transformation to achieve
continuity. They sometimes suffer from overscoring of the piano part, unnecessary doublings, and excessive
unison passages in which the violin part is duplicated by the piano.

Schumann's chamber music miniatures include the Adagio and Allegro in A-flat, Op. 70 (1849), for horn and
piano; the Fantasy Pieces (Fantasiestücke), Op. 73 (1849), for clarinet and piano; the four Fantasy Pieces
(Fantasiestücke), Op. 88 (1842), for piano, violin and cello; Three Romances, Op. 94 (1849), for piano and oboe;
Five Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102 (1849), for cello and piano, the four Fairy-tale Pictures (Märchenbilder), Op.
113 (1851), for piano and viola, and the four Fairy-tales (Märchenerzählungen), Op. 132 (1853) for piano, viola,
and clarinet.

THE PIANO QUINTET IN E-FLAT, OP. 44

The most important work written after the string quartets is the Quintet in E-flat, Op. 44, for piano and strings.
Schumann composed it concurrently with his Quartet, Op. 47, for piano and strings, which is also in E-flat. Both
date from Schumann's “chamber music year,” 1842. The Quintet was begun in September. While that score was
still in progress, Schumann set to work on the Quartet and completed it in less than a week.31

The Quintet has become a staple of chamber music literature on account of its attractive melodic ideas, its
rhythmic energy, and its unambiguous yet original formal designs. The piece is dedicated to Clara Schumann, and
so the piano part is demanding; however, Schumann did not capitalize upon his wife's virtuosity at the expense of
the collaborating instruments.

Robert had arranged for a private performance on 6 December at the home of Carl and Henriette Voigt. Owing to
Clara's indisposition on that occasion, a substitute pianist was called in at the last moment: Felix Mendelssohn. He
played the piece at sight and with great success. Later, he suggested to Schumann some revisions that were
incorporated into the second trio of the scherzo.32

Page 140 →
After Clara's recovery, she quickly took the Quintet into her repertoire and performed it at a private matinée on 8
January 1843. Subsequently, Clara played the piece whenever possible.33 Her high estimation of the Quintet is
also confirmed by the fact that Johannes Brahms, in anticipation of Clara's thirty-fifth birthday in 1854, arranged it
as a four-hand piano piece.34

The first movement, marked Allegro brillante, demonstrates the musical genius of Schumann's alter egos,
Florestan and Eusebius. The grandiose, energetic principal theme of this sonata-form movement is very similar
that of Prince Louis Ferdinand's Piano Quintet, which must have served as a model for him both in
instrumentation and specific musical details.

Schumann's indebtedness to the prince is apparent not only the intervallic and rhythmic structures of his themes,
but also in the way Schumann distributes the themes over the course of the movement. Note in both pieces, for
example, the several repetitions of the upward-leaping opening motif before it progresses to the transition. Equally
conspicuous is the return of this motif immediately before the development section in both pieces. The fact that
Schumann, like the prince, elects to repeat the exposition is quite remarkable in a composition of this vintage. (No
such repetition appears in the first movement of the Piano Quartet, Op. 47.) Obviously, both Louis Ferdinand's
Quintet and Schumann's have a key signature of three fiats.

Schumann develops his principal theme immediately, and the opening eight-measure period concludes with an
elided cadence introducing the first transformation of the subject. The motivic figures in the transition to the
secondary theme, in the key of B-flat, stem from the opening theme. The development section begins with an
unmistakable reiteration of the opening theme, but also, the eighth-note figuration in the keyboard part is a motif
extracted from the theme and treated in diminution.

The soulful second theme first appears in the piano part with the dynamic instruction piano and the affective
indication dolce. Here, we encounter both the tender heart of Eusebius and his wisdom as well; when the stringed
instruments enter, they echo the secondary theme not only in its original guise, but also in a freely paraphrased
inversion. Schumann's contrapuntal ingenuity is apparent throughout the Quintet, and even the most effusive
Romantic melody has been crafted from the outset with an eye toward its potential for polyphonic manipulation.

The recapitulation, marked a tempo and fortissimo, contains some subtle modifications of the expository
material—aside from the customary transpositions. Note, for example, how the accompanimental figuration in the
Page 142 →first transformation of the theme (meas. 9-16) has been rewritten although the melodic structures have
been retained intact (meas. 217-24). Similarly, the prefatory measures in the piano part (marked dolce and piano)
just before the restatement of the secondary theme (m. 265) have been equipped with arpeggiando signs, thereby
creating a completely different effect. (The arpeggios should be completed before the beat so that the principal
melodic tone is reached at the downbeat of the measure.)

Page 141 →

The second movement, which bears the indication In modo d'una marcia and the tempo indication Un poco
largamente, drops to the relative minor. Whereas the contrasting moods of the opening movement had given the
greater voice to Florestan, this funeral march is dominated by the melancholy of Eusebius. There is no historical
information suggesting that this funeral march was precipitated by a particular event that befell Schumann or his
intimates. Instead, the piece seems to be a concert funeral march of the sort written by Beethoven and Chopin.

The opening strain of Schumann's march presents a lugubrious theme in C minor with repeated notes punctuated
by rhetorical pauses. A contrasting section in C major follows. Here, the first violin bears the main theme
(espressivo ma sempre piano)—one of Schumann's most tearful confessions. This lyrical statement moves for the
most part in half notes, the common denominator between the eighth-note subdivision of the beat in the lower
strings and the quarter-note triplets in the piano part. This tranquil interlude concludes with a return to the opening
funeral march figure in C minor. Rhythmic and melodic transformations are introduced for the central Agitato
section, which alternates between A-flat major and F minor in its first half, and then moves to F major in the
second. The F-minor section contains the theme of the opening strain of the funeral march in the left-hand piano
part. A particularly touching effect is achieved in the F-major section by the return of the expressive, first violin
theme in half notes, now stated a fourth higher. The movement concludes with a return to the key of C minor and
a greatly abbreviated recapitulation of the opening theme.

The second movement is a short rondo with three statements of the funeral march in the tonic key with two
different episodes rather than the three episodes that we would find in a full rondo with four statements of the
refrain.35 Again, we must remark Schumann's single-minded pursuit of particular thematic gestures. The second
episode, for instance (Agitato), contains an unnerving rhythmic figure using sforzandos on the second beats of the
measures and alternating constantly between triplet and duplet groupings within the beat. This figure, stated in the
piano part, is a rhythmicPage 143 → diminution of the second-inversion F-minor chord that appears in the
opening funeral march theme.

The third movement is a double scherzo and trio in the tonic and in 6/8 meter. The most striking feature of this
movement is its exploration of scalar patterns in all forms, ascending and descending, in all instruments.
Noteworthy, too, is the use of 2/4 meter for the second Trio—the one added at the request of Mendelssohn.
Harmonically, this portion of the movement recalls the significance of the keys of A-flat major and F minor in the
preceding movement. An energetic coda brings the movement to a close.

It is hard to imagine how any composer could follow three movements exhibiting such depth, vitality, and pathos
with a satisfactory closing movement. Indeed, Schumann was compelled to create one of the most remarkable
hybrid formal designs for this purpose. His solution was a movement that is a combination of sonata and rondo
forms. The movement is remarkable, too, owing to its tonal design: The third movement ends in an ebullient surge
of unequivocal E-flat major tonality, but the fourth movement commences in C minor, thus recalling the tonal
relationship between the first and second movements. A transitional motif leads to a restatement of the opening
figure in G minor. A third motif, consisting of a scalar figure through the interval of a fourth, finally states the E-
flat major tonality, but E-flat is not secure at this point. An excursion into the key of G major (meas. 44) provides
the polarized tonal level of the conventional sonata form, but the principal motif in the piano part is simply the
filled-in-fourth figure in yet another rhythmic diminution. Indeed, the entire movement consists of one thematic
transformation after another.

The most important thematic feature of the Quintet's finale is the coda, where Schumann combines the principal
theme of the first movement in augmentation with a major-mode version of the finale theme within a double
fugue; hence, the theme of the first movement is not merely restated in the last movement, but it is integrated and
developed in an organic way. The thematic recurrence is not simply ornamental: it is essential.

Schumann's use of thematic transformation, his carefully calculated tonal plans—both within the individual
movements and in regulating multimovement sets—and his cyclic reuse of themes yield highly integrated and
convincing music. His deft handling of traditional pattern forms shows that Schumann possessed the diversity of a
chameleon. For him, the choice between writing sprawling, programmatic cycles of wildly contrasting and loosely
related fantasy pieces or composing highly integrated scores regulated by long-range architectonic plans was
precisely that: a choice. It is Page 146 →ironic that his music has been criticized for both features at various times.
In any case, the Piano Quintet alone must set to rest the oft-repeated accusation that Schumann was unable to
exercise adequate control of form in his musical compositions.36

Page 144 → Page 145 →

JOHANNES BRAHMS AND “THE NEW GERMAN SCHOOL”

In assessing the compositional style of Brahms (1833-1897), it is important to realize that he had no sympathy for
the “New German School” headed by Wagner and Liszt. Musically and personally, he was more compatible with
Robert and Clara Schumann, whom he met on 1 October 1853. After Brahms played his compositions for them,
each expressed unbounded praise. In her diary, Clara described him as “one of those who comes as if sent straight
from God.” She went on to say that his works showed “exuberant imagination, depth of feeling, and mastery of
form.” She further remarked that “his things are very difficult.”37 Robert expressed his reaction in the famous
article “Neue Bahnen,” in which “he hailed the twenty-year-old Brahms as the new messiah of music.”38

Because of his conservative aesthetics, Brahms rarely indulged in “program music.” Nor did he rely upon brilliant
orchestration or unusual instrumentation to any great extent. His approach to composition was more akin to that of
the Renaissance composer; he wrote contrapuntal lines forming interesting and often unusual harmonies. These
lines were regulated by equally interesting rhythmic designs. If a line were in danger of becoming obscured by
dense counterpoint, he might employ in it a rhythmic pattern at variance with the surrounding voices in order to
bring it out.

Similarly, Brahms expressed no interest in the more colossal genres of romanticism: He wrote neither operas, nor
ballets, nor tone poems. In his symphonies, too, he avoided musical storytelling as well as the prodigious
ensembles employed by many other late-Romantic composers. Instead, his interests gravitated naturally toward
the genres and forms of the Classicists—especially chamber music.

BRAHMS AND BACH

Like Mendelssohn and Schumann before him, Brahms was keenly interested in the works of Johann Sebastian
Bach. This repertoire was gradually making its way into the mainstream of European musical life as a result of the
efforts of the Bach Gesellschaft and some enlightened performers, like Brahms, who regularly included selections
from Bach's oeuvre on their Page 147 →concert programs. We know, for example, that Brahms was familiar with
the preludes and fugues of the The Well-Tempered Klavier as early as 1848, when he gave his first piano recital,
and on it, played a Bach fugue. Such programming would have been considered “very severe and unfamiliar
concert-fare for the time.”39

Later in his career, Brahms became close personal friends with the Handel scholar Friedrich Chrysander and the
Bach scholar Philipp Spitta—himself a prolific composer of chamber music. Eusebius Mandyczewski, a noted
musicologist who eventually became the director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, was also an
intimate of Brahms's. Mandyczewski saw to it that Brahms received the new editions of the Bach, Handel, and
Schütz works as the individual volumes of their collected works were published. 40 Undoubtedly, Brahms's interest
in early music was one of the factors that cemented his friendship with the Schumanns. “Clara Schumann herself
copied half a dozen pieces by Palestrina and [Johann] Eccard” for Brahms.41 We know, too, that Brahms was on
the editorial board of the Bach Gesellschaft; that he included a cantata by Bach on the first program he presented
as conductor of the Vienna Singakademie; and that he made realizations of continuo parts for Spitta's
performances of Bach's works.42

Brahms's interest in the music of Bach left its unmistakable imprint on his own. In some instances, we can even
discern “parodies” of Bach's compositions. In a few of his early works, Brahms was actually led astray by his awe
for the master of the Thomaskirche, and so, cramped the pages of his scores with fugues of a rather stiff and
pedantic nature. As he matured and came to grips with Bach's monumental polyphonic art, Brahms achieved a
mastery of counterpoint seldom encountered in music of the Romantic era.

BRAHMS'S CHAMBER WORKS OF THE FIRST PERIOD: 1853-1865

Brahms's chamber music can be organized into three chronological periods. The first ranges from 1853, the year
in which the twenty-year-old composer contributed the Scherzo for a four-movement Sonata for violin and piano
written in collaboration with Robert Schumann and Albert Dietrich in honor of the violinist Joseph Joachim
(1831-1907), to the completion of the Trio in E-flat major, Op. 40, for piano, violin, and horn of 1865. For the
next eight years, Brahms wrote no chamber music. The second period commences with the two String Quartets in
C minor and A minor, Page 148 →Op. 51 of 1873, and continues until 1882, when he completed his String
Quintet in F major, Op. 88. A four-year silence ended in 1886, when Brahms composed the Sonata in F major, Op.
99, for cello and piano. His final chamber pieces, completed in 1894, were the Sonatas in F minor and E-flat
major, Op. 120, Nos. 1 and 2, for clarinet (or viola) and piano.

Important works from the first period include the Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8 (1854), the String Sextet in B-flat
major, Op. 18 1859-60), the Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 25 (1857-61), and another piano quartet, this one in A
major, Op. 26 (composition date uncertain). Though it is difficult to generalize about these pieces, Brahms seems
to have been having difficulty managing thematic and formal structures. “In the early period…the methods of
development do not seem to penetrate deeply into the themes; and theme and developments are somewhat
separate.”43

The Piano Trio, Op. 8, was Brahms's first multimovement chamber score to appear in print. In his monograph on
the chamber music of Brahms, Daniel Gregory Mason gives details of the premiere.

It is one of the ironies of music history that the first work in Brahms's great series of twenty-four
masterpieces of chamber music—the Trio in B major, opus 8—should have come to its first
performance…in America. The date was Tuesday, November 27, 1855. The place was Dodsworth's
Hall, New York, on Broadway, opposite Eleventh Street and one door above Grace Church. The
players were Theodore Thomas, violin, then only twenty years old, Carl Bergmann, cello, and
William Mason, piano, a young man of twenty-six. The program, recorded in Dr. Mason's “Memories
of a Musical Life,” closed with the Brahms Trio, announced as “Grand Trio in B major, opus
8.”…Dr. Mason's understatement that the piece was then played “for the first time in America” is
misleading; it should read, “for the first time in the world.”44

The Brahms Trio closed the first of the “Mason and Bergmann” chamber music programs of the 1855-56 season.
On this occasion, the hall was well populated and included reviewers from both the New York Times and the New
York Dispatch. Their respective comments follow:

The trio in B [major] by Mr. Brahms is an early work written, we believe, at the age of eighteen. With
many good points, and much sound musicianship, it possesses also the usual defects of a young
writer, among which may be enumerated length and solidarity. The motivos [sic] seldom fall on the
ear freshly; they suggest something that has been heard before, and induce a skeptical frame of mind,
not altogether just, Page 149 →for the composer evidently has ideas of his own. In the elaboration of
these ideas he is frequently original, always correct, and generally too lengthy.

The Brahms Trio is a composition in the ultra new school of which we may say briefly that we do not
yet understand it. Whether this be due to our dullness of perception, or lack of appreciation, or the
intricate character of the music, we do not pretend to say…. Yet we feel obliged to Messrs. Mason
and Bergmann for the opportunity they afforded us for hearing and becoming acquainted with this
peculiar and outré style of music.45

Brahms revised Op. 8 thoroughly in 1889, deleting about one-third of the score. The excisions are far-reaching in
all movements except the Scherzo.46 Some have argued in favor of preserving the original version of the Trio “as
a work in its own right.”47 To some extent, this has been done in recent years, and several good recordings of the
early version are currently available; nevertheless, the temptation to compare the two versions is irresistible.
Mason puts his finger on one of the most striking features of the 1854 Trio that Brahms altered in the 1889 piece,
namely, “the adoption of a second and a third theme which do nothing to afford contrast to the thetic rhythm of the
first, but turn its weightiness to downright heaviness by their pitiless insistence on beat One.”48 The introduction
of a fugue subject toward the conclusion of the exposition (meas. 98-103) is even more problematic. The model
for this subject was apparently Bach's B-minor fugue (number 24) in the first volume of Well-Tempered Klavier.
Both subjects are constructed largely of chromatic dyads, and both terminate with a trill figure. The Bachian
subject employs all twelve tones of the chromatic gamut, while Brahms's subject encompasses only ten as a result
of the omission of the tones E-natural and F-sharp.

Brahms introduces the subject in measure 98, but is at a loss to do anything significant with it. After a few
imitations, the idea is dropped, and the development begins. In measure 354 of the recapitulation, the unwieldy
subject reappears in the cello. Again, Brahms is unable to achieve the musical interest that he admired in the fugue
from Well-Tempered Klavier. In the revised version of the Trio, he removed these passages.

That Brahms, in 1889, was able to identify weaknesses in a piece that he had composed thirty-five years earlier is
not surprising, but the extensive revision of this Trio may have been motivated by additional considerations. It is
generally known that Schumann was fond of embedding hidden messages in his compositions. At other times,
Schumann made allusions to literature or other extramusical concepts. Brahms was familiar with the musical
motifs and pet names that Schumann used to depict his wife, Clara. The themes of the 1854 version of the Piano
Trio, Op. 8, included many such musical allusions.

Page 150 →

Its obvious allusions…[are] to Schubert (“Am Meer,” No. 12 of Schwanengesang [D. 744]) and
Beethoven (An die ferne Geliebte) in the Adagio and finale respectively. The latter speaks plainly
enough; the recurrent melody of “Nimm sie hin denn, diese Lieder” is synonymous with its usage in
Schumann's Fantasy op. 17. In both works, as in Beethoven's song-cycle, the music is offered as
humble homage to an unattainable beauty. So presumably the other quotation will also mean its
words. Page 151 →[Also] in 1854, Clara was practicing and performing the fourth Beethoven piano
concerto, which resounds from the trio's finale…. Clara…is apparently the theme of the whole
work—sometimes too apparently, as Brahms may later have realized.49

It has been suggested as well that even the choice of key for the trio was significant:

[In] Schumann's opera Genoveva…Siegfried marches off to the wars, leaving his wife to the all too
tender care of his steward Golo…. Brahms would have good reason to be thinking of that opera in
1854,…[for it] was due to appear on the autumn concert-programmes. It contains one of the last, and
not the least apt or moving, of Schumann's own B minor Clara-themes—at Siegfried's words to Golo
“take care of my wife.”50

It is significant that all of these allusions “without exception, were omitted by Brahms from his second version,
which is presented as absolute music—telling no tales, betraying no secrets. The first version is all but forgotten;
and this too seems likely to have been a conscious aim.”51

It remains unclear whether Brahms removed these personal allusions because he feared that what were once
arcane messages for the intimate members of the Schumann circle would be readily comprehended by any
intelligent musician of the late nineteenth century, or simply because he felt that these musical themes failed to
come together to form a convincing musical score. The 1854 version of the Piano Trio is clearly laden with
difficulties—both formal and aesthetic—that the composer removed in the later version of the piece.

Brahms revised another early work, the Piano Quartet in G minor, Op. 25 (1857–58), in order to make the piece
more concise. Most of these cuts were confined to the third movement.52

The String Sextet in B-flat, Op. 18, was begun in 1859 and finished the following year. By writing for pairs of
violins, violas, and cellos, Brahms avoided the difficulties of treating a single cello simultaneously as a functional
bass line and an active participant in the presentation and development of the motivic substance of the piece. In
short, the two cellos function in a capacity analogous to the host and hostess at a dinner party: each must, at times,
look after the logistics of the event; on the other hand, their teamwork affords opportunities to each for more
relaxed participation in the general conversation.

The melodic importance of the cello part is apparent even in the opening measures of the piece, where the first
cello states the opening theme. Page 152 →This theme is typically Brahmsian in its construction, consisting of
two five-measure phrases leading up to the entrance of the violins.
With the exception of the Trio in E-flat major, Op. 40, for piano, violin, and horn, the first movements of
Brahms's chamber compositions are in sonata form. The realization of this design in the Sextet in B-flat is
especially clear, and includes a secondary theme—again stated by the first cello—beginning in measure 84 in the
key of the dominant. The closing theme, stated by the first violin (meas. 115), uses the same rhythm (dotted
quarter, eighth, quarter) that Brahms had employed in the exposition in the transition to the second theme. The
exposition is delineated by a double bar line and includes a repeat. The end of the exposition is heralded by the
expansion of the texture to eleven parts through the lavish use of double and triple stops.

The development section is essentially harmonic, though in its course, references are made to all three themes of
the exposition. The climax of the development is reached in measures 230-58, where a crescendo passage is
complemented by an enriched texture of double and triple stops, syncopation, and exploration of the extreme
registers of both the cello and the first violin. This tremendous tension melts away almost imperceptibly to the
recapitulation (m. 269), now with a modified form of the theme in the second cello part.

Whereas the principal theme had initially been stated at poco forte, Brahms instructs that the recapitulation should
be piano. More than forty measures of the first-theme music are dropped from Brahms's initial recapitulation;
however, the balance is restored when the first cello returns to the opening theme in its pristine form (meas. 363)
toward the end of the movement.

The second movement, Andante, ma Moderato, is a set of six variations. Five of the variations are in D minor, but
the fourth shifts to the parallel major. Both the choice of key and the string figuration suggest the influence of
Bach's D-minor Chaconne, a piece that Brahms arranged—quite faithfully—as a piano etude for left hand. Brahms
himself arranged these variations for piano solo.53

The third movement, a scherzo in F major, and the fourth, a rondo in B-flat major, are textbook examples of these
forms. Regarding the finale, one critic has gone so far as to say that “the regularity of its design is almost painfully
orthodox.”54 I would suggest, however, that Brahms's strict adherence to Classical pattern forms as well as such
subtle deviations from it as we have observed in the recapitulation of the first movement enabled him to produce
in this Sextet the finest chamber score of his first period.

Page 153 →

Joseph Joachim, who led the premiere on 20 October 1860 in Hanover, frequently played the piece during his long
and productive career. Similarly, Clara Schumann noted in her diary that the first performance in Leipzig, given at
the Conservatory, was a great success. The Sextet was also well received at its premiere in Hamburg, and the
publication of the piece by Simrock soon came into great demand.

The four-movement String Sextet in G major, Op. 36, was composed in the years 1864-65. This work reverses the
scheme of internal movements found in Op. 18, and places the scherzo as the second movement with a set of
variations as the third. The two string sextets stand apart from the other chamber works of Brahms's first period
since they exclude the piano. As we listen to his works with piano, we must remember that the instruments that he
used were different from those typically found in present-day performances. From 1856 until shortly after his
move to Vienna in 1871, Brahms used a grand piano built by Conrad Graf (1782-1851) and presented to Clara
Schumann for her wedding in 1840. This piano, which Robert Schumann had used, was donated by Brahms to the
Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in 1873.55 Thereafter, he used a grand piano built in 1868 by the firm of J. B.
Streicher (1796-1871).

When we ponder the two pianos we know Brahms owned during his productive career, we find that
one was a typical Viennese grand of the late 1830's, the other a conservative one of the late 1860's.
Neither was a truly modern piano, if the cross-strung, iron-framed Steinway is the touchstone of the
modern piano. To hear Brahms's music on an instrument like the Streicher is to realize that the thick
textures we associate with his work, the sometimes muddy chords in the bass and the occasionally
woolly sonorities, come cleaner and clearer on a lighter, straight-strung piano. Those textures, then,
are not a fault of Brahms's piano composition. To be sure, any sensitive pianist can avoid making
 Brahms sound murky on a modern piano. The point is that the modern pianist must strive to avoid
that effect, must work at lightening the dark colors, where Brahms himself, playing his Streicher, did
not have to work at it.56

The chamber pieces with piano dating from Brahms's first chamber music period—specifically the two Piano
Quartets, Opp. 25 and 26, the Piano Quintet, Op. 34, and the Trio in E-flat, Op. 40—were composed with the
sound of the Graf instrument in mind. (This was lighter still than the sound of the Streicher.) The most frequently
performed of these works is the expansive Piano Quintet in F minor, completed in the fall of 1864. The Page 154
→“thunderous” character associated with this piece is, to some extent, an anachronism.57

The history of this Quintet is complex: The piece began as a four-movement quintet for two violins, one viola, and
two cellos. Joseph Joachim critiqued this version in a letter of 26 May 1863 to Clara Schumann:

[Brahms] was here [in Hanover] for three days…and I was able to have his Quintette played for him.
It is a great pity that the general effect of this piece, in spite of so much that is remarkable in it, should
be unsatisfactory, and I was glad that Johannes, on hearing it himself, wished to alter it. A man of his
strong character cannot accept anything on hearsay.58

In the winter of 1863-64, Brahms rescored the piece for two pianos. This version was known subsequently as Op.
34b.59 The final version for piano with string quartet was completed during the late summer or early autumn of
1864.

The first movement is in sonata form. It commences with a unison subject for piano, first violin, and cello in F
minor. The secondary key, C-sharp minor, is established in measure 34. The tonal scheme is simply a pair of
third-related keys, F minor and D-flat minor, with the latter respelled as C-sharp minor. The closing theme (m. 74)
is in the parallel major key, D-flat major. Brahms calls for a repetition of the exposition—a welcome feature given
its complexity.

The development section of about eighty measures is in two almost equal portions treating the first and second
themes respectively. A restatement of the opening theme in diminution appears in the first violin (meas. 96). This
rhythmically altered statement is taken up briefly by the second violin and viola. The secondary theme, with its
characteristic cross-rhythms (meas. 136), contributes the main substance of the development's second portion. The
closing theme is omitted altogether from the development.

The beginning of the recapitulation is difficult to pinpoint. Brahms drops the unison statement of the principal
theme and rewrites the opening bars so that the piano accompaniment is the first material we recognize from the
exposition; however, this figuration is not preceded by a clear-cut dominant chord; thus, the return to F minor is
weakly represented despite the familiar figuration. Only in the pickup beat to measure 173 do we have an
unambiguous dominant-seventh chord cadencing directly to the tonic key and the principal theme. The secondary
theme merits only a passing reference in the recapitulation. Brahms focuses instead on the closing Page 155
→theme. An extended coda (meas. 261) with the tempo indication Poco sostenuto brings the movement to a close.

The second movement, a straightforward song-form in the key of E major (Andante, un poco Adagio), affords a
respite from the dense first movement. Whereas the outer sections consist largely of melodies doubled at the
intervals of a third or tenth, the themes of the central portion appear in parallel sixths. An interesting but subtle
modification of the principal theme is made at its return in measure 83, where the right-hand piano part is
exchanged for the first-violin line and vice versa.

The third movement is a scherzo in C minor. Its three main themes are highly distinctive, the first being a
syncopated figure in 6/8 time, the second, a sharply dotted motif in 2/4 time, and the third, a full-fisted, chordal
passage of dotted quarter-notes in 6/8 meter. The Trio section is a more relaxed affair in C major, but it, too,
contains touches for the connoisseur, such as the shift to 2/4 meter occurring in measure 226. This detail
establishes a rhythmic and formal link with the preceding scherzo section. Another remarkable feature of this
passage is the use of invertible counterpoint. Note how the cello line in measures 226 to 233 becomes the right-
hand piano part in measures 234 to 241; similarly, the right-hand piano part in measures 226 to 233 moves to the
first violin in measures 234 to 241. A conventional repetition of the scherzo follows the Trio.

The finale commences with a slow introduction (poco sostenuto) of forty measures. This ominous preface gives
way to a tuneful theme (Allegro non troppo) stated by the cello, but soon taken up in the other voices. A
contrasting theme and tonality appear beginning in measure 93 at the indication un pochettino piÙ animato, and a
densely scored idea characterized by triplet subdivision of the beat and syncopation serves in the capacity of a
closing theme (meas. 125).

This opening segment of the finale suggests sonata form; however, it may be more accurate to speak of “sonata
principle” rather than “form.” Musical tension resulting from tonal and melodic contrast is important in creating
direction and momentum in this movement. At the same time, points of thematic and tonal stability and instability
are not quite so neatly sequestered from one another as they had been in earlier sonata forms. Brahms's
“exposition” is already colored with passages that seem developmental in their use of thematic fragmentation,
scalar alterations, and continuation and elaboration of rhythmic motifs. As a consequence, the traditional functions
of the “development” and “recapitulation” sections have been usurped to a great extent. Accordingly, the
reappearance of the main theme at measure 182, of the secondary theme at measure 251 (with the Page 156
→appropriate transposition), and of the closing idea at measure 283 constitutes a varied restatement rather than a
recapitulation.

The varied restatement is followed by 150 measures of music in 6/8 time at the tempo Presto, non troppo. The
themes here are derived from previous material, but the transformations are drastic. This portion of the movement
serves as a coda, but its length and significance suggest that it also acts as another varied reprise.

The final chamber music essay of Brahms's first period is the four-movement Trio in E-flat, Op. 40, for piano,
horn, and violin. Brahms began this unusual score in the spring of 1865 after the death of his mother. He gave the
premiere himself on 5 December of that same year in Karlsruhe.60

The first movement, Andante, contains two distinct themes, the first in duple meter, the second in triple compound
meter; however, these are merely played in alternation rather than being polarized as in a sonata. This structure
was necessitated by Brahms's use of the Waldhorn rather than the valved horn—which, practically speaking, had
already replaced the natural horn. Another consequence of the natural horn is that all movements are in the key of
E-flat (the third movement, Adagio mesto, is in the parallel minor). The Trio of the second movement scherzo
goes briefly into the key of A-flat minor.

Brahms approved the substitution of either cello or viola for the horn, but his preferred substitution was the viola.
In any case, the thematic gestures—particularly in the scherzo (Allegro) and the finale (Allegro con brio)—are so
idiomatic to the horn that neither of these substitutions is satisfactory.

The most compelling movement in the score is the third, which Brahms wrote as an elegy for his mother, Johanna
Henrike Christiane (née Nissen). Her death was doubly traumatic to Brahms owing to its upsetting circumstances.
Clara Schumann's letter of 19 July 1864 sets the scene:

I was so shocked and saddened by your letter yesterday [informing me of the separation of your
parents] that I feel I must write to you today…. I had not the faintest suspicion of any discord in your
family; [thus], you will understand my alarm at your news…. I should not be surprised at your
standing by your father, but in this case, knowing as I have for years your preference for your mother,
it is incredible to me. I think it terribly sad that two people who have lived so long together, who are
surrounded by grown-up children and who are almost standing on the edge of the grave, should
separate. Naturally I cannot form any opinion as to who is right or wrong, and yet I cannot help
thinking that Page 157 →if a misunderstanding arises as the result of a number of trifles, it is the
woman's role to be conciliating. She ought to remember that it is her husband who bears the principal
 responsibility for the whole of the home, etc., etc. But if the husband is unfaithful or neglects his wife,
or is a gambler or drunkard, then the wife cannot be blamed if she refuses to endure it all. I know, of
course, that there can be no question of this in your father's case and am longing to hear the truth
about the matter.61

During her stay in Hamburg between 30 November and 8 December of 1864, Clara had visited the Brahms family.
She wrote the following to Johannes on 5 December:

My heart is filled with anguish…. Oh what misery! Your mother and Elise were crying the whole
time, and then there was your father who unburdened his heart to me; each of them in turn said they
could answer before God for every word they had uttered. I assure you it has made me quite ill, for
one's heart gets torn in two.62

On 6 February of 1865, Brahms wrote to Clara about his mother's final illness.

Last Tuesday evening my mother returned in quite good spirits from a concert and even joked with
Fritz as she got out of the carriage. Hardly had the latter driven away, however, when she complained
that her tongue felt heavy, and my sister saw to her horror that her mouth was all drawn sideways and
that her tongue was swollen and protruding. In spite of the fact that she was convinced that my
mother had had a stroke, Elise had to comfort her and remain quietly at her side while my mother
complained that the whole of her left side seemed paralyzed. After being brought home she believed
herself to be quite well, and trusted Elise's comforting assurances that her chill would soon get better
in bed. It was almost impossible to understand what she said, and the doctor told Elise at once how
serious her condition was. In bed she was still able to address my sister in the tenderest way and to
press her hand. Then she closed her eyes and fell gently to sleep. Heavy perspiration followed, then
the death rattle, and at two o'clock on the following night she passed away.63

Under these heavy circumstances, Brahms penned the third movement of Op. 40. The movement, in 6/8 meter,
commences with an arpeggiando, four-measure introduction by the piano. Then, largely in parallel thirds, the
violin and horn play the first theme of the movement, an angular line riddled with chromatic tendency tones, and
reminiscent of Bach's aria Page 158 →“Seufzer, Tränen, Kummer, Not” from Cantata 21, Ich hatte viel
Bekümmernis. A second theme is introduced (meas. 19) by the horn. This is imitated first by the violin, then by the
piano. The second theme is immediately subjected to development. At measure 47, the first theme returns. At
measure 69, this theme is transformed into a powerful, triumphant majormode statement (passionata). As the
movement draws to a close, the opening theme returns, and the brooding minor mode overtakes us once again.

The finale is the most ebullient element of the piece. This Allegro con brio movement in 6/8 meter is a miniature
sonata form that has as its first theme a subject based on an arpeggiation of the E-flat-major chord with anacrusis,
repeated tones, and passing tones. This melody is stated by the violin, then echoed by the horn (pickup to meas.
9). The second theme is another arpeggiated figure, this time based on the G-flat major triad. As the secondary
idea draws to a close, we encounter the characteristic metrical permutations of this meter that we expect of
Brahms: regrouping subdivisions to form three groups of two eighth-notes—hence simple 3/4
meter—syncopations of all sorts, use of the dotted quarter as the basic unit to create the impression of simple
duple meter, and, of course, hemiola. The basic imagery of the movement is suffused with allusions to hunting.
Perhaps Brahms was suggesting that life is a hunt in which every person eventually becomes the victim of the
chase; death ultimately ensnares us all. Despite its grave content, the Trio has become one of Brahms's best-loved
chamber works.64 The Horn Trio was followed by an eight-year hiatus from chamber music composition.

THE SECOND CHAMBER-MUSIC PERIOD: 1873-1882

The two String Quartets, Op. 51, represent the culmination of years of work. We know that “Brahms destroyed
more than twenty quartettes and in general probably published about half or less of what he composed.”65 Clara
Schumann's diary mentions that Brahms showed her various quartet movements during the summer of 1869.
Malcolm MacDonald supposes that these were actually “preliminary versions of his op. 51.”66 The composition of
this pair of quartets occupied Brahms for at least four years. Several possible explanations for Brahms's glacial
progress come to mind. As was the case with his well-known inertia in composing the First Symphony, Brahms
must have been overawed by the contributions made by Beethoven to the genre. Indeed, it has been suggested that
Beethoven's quartets of Op. 18 and Op. 59 were the direct models for those of Brahms's Op. 51.67 By 1871, the
year Brahms moved to Vienna, that city was self-consciousPage 159 → of its heritage as the home of the Classical
style. The Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick was eager both to maintain that tradition and to ensure its continuation.

The two quartets that Brahms published in 1873 are conservative in their formal designs yet masterful in their
ingenious counterpoint and manipulation of motivic resources. Both quartets follow the four-movement plan. The
First Quartet, in C minor, begins with a sonata-from movement whose opening theme is transformed to become
the principal theme of the finale, a truncated sonata movement. These outer movements include significantly
proportioned codas. The internal movements are a triple-meter “Romanze” (Poco adagio) in A-flat major and a 4
/8-meter Allegretto molto moderato e commodo in the key of F. The Allegretto contains a contrasting Trio. The
Second Quartet, in A minor, also begins and ends with sonata movements. Again, thematic elements from the first
movement infiltrate the finale. In this case, rhythmic motifs assume an importance equal to intervallic content in
the cyclic structure. Probably the most unusual feature of the piece is the fact that both the second and third
movements—marked Andante moderato and Quasi Menuetto, moderato respectively—remain in the tonic key of
A. The Andante happens to be in the major mode, but the minuet returns to the minor form of the key.

The Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 60, was completed in 1874 and published by Simrock in the following year,
but its genesis can be traced to 1855. At that time, Brahms wrote the first movement (which was originally a half
step higher) as well as an E-major Andante that may be the one that presently stands as the third movement. The 6
/8-meter Scherzo in C minor and finale were added later.68 The Quartet reveals problems already noted in
conjunction with first-period works: a certain inconsistency in formal design, occasional awkwardness in
managing the ensemble, and unnecessary density in texture, especially in the piano part.

The viola part often doubles the violin an octave below or the cello an octave above. This sort of doubling is
particularly apparent in the finale. These passages almost invariably cause problems since even the slightest
discrepancies in intonation or rhythm become noticeable. The piano part for much of this movement is a single
line doubled at the octave.

Despite its spotty construction, the Quartet has moments of inspiration. The sonata design of the first movement is
an ingenious one. The lyric second theme, which is announced in the piano part at (meas. 70), is one of Brahms's
finest melodies. It becomes the basis of four variations that constitute the remainder of the exposition. This theme
is in the key of E-flat major rather than the dominant key. The return of this theme in G majorPage 160 → in the
recapitulation (meas. 236 in the cello) is both novel and effective. On the one hand, we find the sort of third
relations that were, by this point in the Romantic era, customary. At the same time, Brahms managed to save a
special role for the key of the dominant. Finally, the stabilized tonal plateaus arpeggiate a C-minor triad, and thus
grow organically from the tonic key of the piece. The third movement (Andante) contains fine contrapuntal
passages. The finale, marked Allegro comodo, was revised shortly after its completion. Karl Geiringer remarks:

Brahms, in his striving after compression, for once overshot the mark. As is shown by the manuscript
(in the possession of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde), Brahms subsequently inserted b. 155-88 in
order to mitigate the excessive conciseness of this movement. Moreover, he gave it, later on, a slower
tempo.69

The Piano Quartet was followed in 1875 by the String Quartet, Op. 67 in B-flat major. The Hellmesberger Quartet
played the premiere at the home of Theodor Billroth in 1876. Eduard Hanslick, who attended the event, gave a
favorable verdict.70 Brahms himself made the four-hand piano version.

The layout of the piece is conventional. The first movement, at a Vivace tempo, alternates sections of 6/8 and 2/4
and ultimately combines these contrasting meters in the F-major, second-key material in fascinating sesquialtera
rhythms. Formally, the movement is a traditional sonata-allegro plan including the repetition of the exposition
section and a conventional recapitulation (meas. 205).

The second movement, Allegro, is in the dominant key. The meter here, common time, is stable and presents a
restful contrast to the rhythmic complexities of the opening movement. The design is an A-B-A' song form with
extensive reworking of the opening material at its return. The codetta (meas. 81) contains interesting peripheral
harmonies that set the listener up for the turbulent Agitato movement (Allegretto non troppo) that follows.

This movement in D minor, which strings play con sordino, is in triple meter and features the viola. Unusual is the
use here of the old-fashioned da capo instruction (as opposed to a varied restatement). The movement is rounded
off by an eighteen-measure codetta. Both Walter Frisch and Malcolm MacDonald suppose that this movement
served Arnold Schöberg as the model for his String Quartet in D major of 1897.71

The finale is a set of eight variations on a folksy theme in 2/4 meter. They seem at once to summarize and to grow
organically from the three Page 161 →preceding movements. In the first two variations, the sound of the viola is
featured. The seventh variation (in 6/8 time, doppio movimento) retrieves the opening theme of the first
movement. The thematic connection is made the more obvious by Brahms's reversion to the scoring used in the
first movement: second violin and viola in parallel thirds. The final variation recalls the metrical complexities of
the first movement and forms a sort of palindromic conclusion.

During the summers of 1878 and 1879, Brahms wrote his Sonata in G major, Op. 78, for violin and piano, which
was his first score to use this instrumentation: This is odd, since Brahms's career as a professional musician began
when the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi engaged him as his accompanist. From 1850 to 1852, the two
concertized regularly. In 1878, Brahms completed Op. 77, the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. Only after
completing the concerto did Brahms undertake the composition of a sonata for violin and piano.

In 1880, Simrock published Brahms's sonata, which was constructed with a conventional three-movement plan:
Vivace (6/4), Adagio in E-flat major (2/4), and Allegro molto moderato. Throughout the score, Brahms wrote
lucid piano parts. The opening Vivace, in 6/4 meter, is a good example of the transparent, arpeggiated style that
Brahms employs for the piano. Most of the time, the violin carries the principal melodies. The piano occasionally
doubles the tune. The secondary key, D major, affords the piano the more conspicuous role, while the violin
accompanies with pizzicato chords.

The ensuing Adagio drops down a major third to the more relaxed key of E-flat major. The piano leads off with
the main theme in duple meter. Throughout this movement, Brahms explores the piano's lower register. The
design of the movement is an A-B-A' song form with significant reworking of the A material at its reappearance.
The piano part includes delicate triplet figuration, and the violin part is enhanced with double stops.

The finale, bearing the instruction Allegro molto moderato, commences with an idea that returns at regular
intervals, but with the tonal flexibility of a Baroque ritornello rather than the restrictions of a Classical rondo
refrain. Interesting, too, is the recollection in one of the episodes (meas. 83, violin) of the opening of the second
movement. The movement includes curious paraphrases of two songs by Brahms, “Regenlied” and “Nachklang,”
Op. 59, Nos. 3 and 4 (1873) respectively. What Brahms may have intended by these allusions can only be
guessed.

Brahms began the Piano Trio in C major, Op. 87, in March 1880 and finished the score in June 1882. Simrock
issued the first edition in the followingPage 162 → year. The first movement, an Allegro in 3/4 meter, commences
with a theme stated in octaves by the strings. The theme is immediately followed by a varied restatement using
imitation between the cello and violin and punctuated by rests. A more grandiose restatement appears at measure
33. The piano introduces both the secondary theme (meas. 57) and the closing theme (meas. 102). The
development is a stormy one (meas. 129) based on a dotted rhythm from the exposition. The principal melodic
interest of the development is its use of a variant of the opening theme. The recapitulation (meas. 209) is inflected
by the minor mode. Beginning in measure 313, one of the transformations of the main theme assumes paramount
importance and brings the movement to a dramatic close.

The second movement, a duple-meter set of variations marked Andante con moto in A minor, opens with the
violin and cello presenting the main theme in octaves. The movement is given an unsettled feeling by the
persistent use of syncopations in the piano accompaniment. The third variation is conspicuous for its dense texture
created by double and triple stops in both the violin and cello parts. Noteworthy, too, is the antiphonal contrast
that Brahms establishes between the strings and the piano. The fourth variation, in the parallel major mode, is a
more relaxed piece of work in 6/8 time. The concluding variation spins out a lyrical melody in alternation between
the two stringed instruments against an elegant, steadily arpeggiated piano accompaniment.

The ensuing Scherzo in the key of C minor in 6/8 meter is marked Presto. Its central section (poco meno presto)
fluctuates between C major and E-flat major.72 Formally, this portion is unusual because of its incomplete binary
form. While the first portion of this subsection behaves as we might expect (i.e., presenting harmonic motion from
tonic to dominant and utilizing a repeat bar), the second half of the form remains at the dominant level. The return
to tonic coincides with the reappearance of the opening Presto material. Brahms wrote out the reprise, but only the
six-measure closing deviates significantly from the original statement.

The finale, an Allegro giocoso movement in C major and common time, is a sonata-allegro form. The
development features the opening theme. An extended pedal point leads to the recapitulation (meas. 117). In an
expansive coda, Brahms uses the movement's main theme along with the theme of the first movement in
augmentation.

While Brahms was at work on the Piano Trio in C major, he had the idea for the String Quintet in F major, Op. 88,
and began composing it immediately in the spring of 1882. The piece was finished in short order—Brahms Page
163 →had already sent the completed score to Elisabet von Herzogenberg in July 1882.73 Publication by Simrock
followed in 1883. The original manuscript is in the collection of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.

For this Quintet, Brahms used two violins, two violas, and a single cello. Less traditional is the three-movement
plan in which the second movement combines elements of the slow movement and scherzo under a single roof.

The first movement, an Allegro non troppo ma con brio in common time, utilizes two contrasting themes: the first,
a lyrical tune, the second, distinctive for its use of triplets and cross rhythms. The second theme is in the key of A
major, and so the tonal plan—moving from the relaxed fiat key to the brighter sharp key—reflects the character of
the themes. The development section picks up on the rhythmic intricacies of the second theme group. The
recapitulation (m. 136) is enriched by double and triple stops in all instruments.

The second movement consists of five sections in the respective tempos Grave ed appassionato (3/4), Allegretto
vivace (6/8), Grave, Presto (cut time), and Grave. The opening, C-sharp minor section and its repetitions are based
on a sarabande Brahms wrote in 1855. The serious character of this Baroque dance pervades these three sections
of the movement. The Allegretto in A major, too, has a certain high-minded purpose that fits it well between the
surrounding sections. The presto portion, in A major, is less convincing and seems out of place. In the final
measures of the movement, Brahms toys with varied repetitions of the cadential figure, flipping back and forth
from minor to major in the manner of the Baroque cadence with a Picardy third. The movement as a whole
breathes the spirit of the Baroque, and its contrasting sections are reminiscent of seventeenth-century sonatas da
chiesa.

The last movement, too, shows influences of Baroque formal procedures, for it combines elements of fugue with
structural aspects of the Classical sonata principle. Regarding this movement, Karl Geiringer has observed that “as
the different themes…are nothing more than variations of the fugue-like main theme or in counterpoint to it, the
inner unity…is perfectly preserved in spite of all its variety.”74 This organic relationship among the themes may
have been inspired by similar structures that Brahms found in the variation canzonas of Frescobaldi and his
contemporaries. We know that Brahms was particularly interested in the music of Frescobaldi, and that he had
copied by hand various pieces for inclusion in his personal music library.75 In many cases, Brahms copied from
the extensivePage 164 → music collection of his close friend Gustav Nottebohm, at whose funeral Brahms gave
the oration, and who bequeathed to Brahms various items within that collection.76

BRAHMS'S FINAL CHAMBER WORKS: 1886-1894

After the F-major Quintet, Brahms wrote no chamber music for four years. In the summer of 1886 when the
composer was vacationing at Hofstetten, a Swiss resort near Thun, he wrote the Sonata in F major for cello and
piano, Op. 99, the Sonata in A major for violin and piano, Op. 100, and the Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 101, and
began the Sonata in D minor for violin and piano, Op. 108. This last work occupied him until 1888.77

The Sonata in F major for cello and piano exhibits a tendency toward compression and economy. The first
movement calls for repetition of the exposition, which, at the first ending, comes to rest on an A-major chord;
however, when the movement progresses to the development, A-major is transformed into F-sharp minor. This
half-step relationship between F major and F-sharp minor is a critical structural element in each of the four
movements of the Sonata. Though the development section commences with the stormy, opening theme, this idea
soon gives way to some of the exposition's more subdued materials. Brahms highlights the change in affection
with the instruction molto piano e sempre legato. The recapitulation (m. 128) is conventional.

The second movement (Adagio affettuoso, 2/4 meter) is in F-sharp major; thus, recalling the structural role of the
half step. Its form essentially follows the three-section design of a song. The central portion, in F minor, reasserts
the importance of the half step. The principal themes are introduced as subject and countersubject in the first two
measures, and both instruments have ample opportunity to explore these themes in a series of voice exchanges.
The piano part is written mainly in the treble clef. Dynamics are generally understated. The lowest range of the
instrument is used sparingly, and such passages bear instructions like dolce or piano.

The third movement, Allegro passionato, does not follow the precise formal pattern of the scherzo-and-trio, yet its
lively rhythm and 6/8 meter suggest the character of a scherzo, as does the movement's vivid contrast between the
driving, F-minor material and the tranquil, F-major, central portion. Brahms rounds off the movement with the
instruction da capo sin alfine—another archaic gesture.

The finale is one of the rare appearances of rondo form in the repertoire of the late Romantic era. In this rondo,
Brahms departs from the customaryPage 165 → procedure; the third reprise (m. 84) is in G-flat major. With this
modification of the pattern form, Brahms at once made it more suitable for Romantic expression and, at the same
time, reaffirmed the organic importance of the half step, albeit in its spelling as a Neapolitan here.

The Sonata in A major, Op. 100, for violin and piano, opens with a concise Allegro amabile in triple meter. The
exposition is not repeated since the movement is one of exceptional formal clarity including the Classical tonic-
dominant polarity, memorable themes, and traditional distribution of opening, secondary, and closing material.
The closing theme uses a dotted rhythm that had already appeared in the secondary theme; hence, the structure is
an integrated one. The recapitulation (m. 158) is condensed to make room for a fascinating coda (m. 227). This
coda is a second recapitulation, presenting first the dotted rhythm of the closing theme (m. 243), then the main
theme (m. 259). Viewed broadly, we see at once a palindromic recapitulation (with the order of themes reversed)
and a “double recapitulation” sonata form.

The second movement combines traditional aspects of both a slow movement and scherzo: each of the three
Andante tranquillo sections is followed by a contrasting Vivace. Whereas the former passages are in duple meter,
the music of the Vivace segments is in triple meter.

In the finale, Brahms employs a rondo-variation design, so that at each recurrence (mm. 20, 63, 137), the rondo
refrain is recognizable yet recognizably different. The movement, which bears the indications Allegretto grazioso
(quasi andante), is also surprisingly restful—a characteristic not particularly associated with rondos or with finales
in general.

The Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 101, is concise in expression and formal design. The first movement features a
four-note motif, B (natural or fiat), C, D, E-flat, heard in the opening measure, at the appearance of the second key
area, at the beginning of the development, and in many permutations throughout the movement. Originally, the
composer had called for a repetition of the exposition; however, upon further consideration he canceled the repeat
sign.

The second movement is a scherzo of conventional formal design with the performance instruction Presto non
assai. Clara Schumann admired this movement, noting in particular its poetic tenderness. The third movement,
Andante grazioso, is a three-section song form employing changing meters. The finale continues the exploration
of changing meters in a variable 6/8 meter. In the coda, however, of more than sixty measures, Brahms recalls his
principal themes, and subjects them to transformation to produce an ebullient conclusion.

Page 166 →

The D-minor Sonata, Op. 108, for violin and piano, begins with a sonata-form Allegro that polarizes the keys of D
and F. The development is dominated by continuous eighth-note motion, which recalls the Fortspinnung of
Baroque music, but which is exceptional for Brahms. The recapitulation, like the second recapitulation of the
Sonata, Op. 100, is a palindromic one that presents theme two beginning at measure 185 and the opening theme
beginning at measure 218.

The second movement, an Adagio in D major, is terse and uncomplicated. It consists of a lyrical strain that is then
repeated with variation. The third movement, Un poco presto e con sentimento, is in F-sharp minor. This duple-
meter movement is similarly terse and straightforward, save for the excursions into the keys of F major and D
minor.

It took Brahms two years to complete Op. 108. MacDonald wonders whether the piece might have been “salvaged
from some much earlier composition.”78 The finale (Presto agitato, 6/8 time) contains the heavy-handed writing
noted in Brahms's early work. In length, it surpasses the first movement (which is a hefty 264 measures) by an
additional 73; hence, the precision characteristic of Brahms's mature style is lacking. The lower extremities of the
piano range are more extensively used than in any of the other late chamber scores. Though the dedicatee of this
sonata, Hans von Bülow, was a pianist, the difficult part that Brahms wrote here seems primitive rather than
virtuosic.

At the request of Joseph Joachim, who wanted a companion piece to perform with Op. 88, Brahms composed his
String Quintet in G major, Op. 111 (1890) consisting of four exquisite movements in the sequence Allegro, non
troppo ma con brio, Adagio, Un poco allegretto, and Vivace, ma non troppo presto.79 The first movement is a
sonata form with repeated exposition. The exposition presents two contrasted themes: the first, a vigorous, almost
symphonic theme announced by the cello against tremolandi in the pairs of violins and violas; the second, a lyric
idea that could easily have been a song. The dense scoring of the first theme apparently was considered
problematic by a number of musicians close to the composer. Some thought was given to reworking the opening
so as to allow the cello to be more easily heard.80 In his monograph on Brahms, Geiringer gives the alternative
opening that Brahms concocted, but notes that “in spite of the evident advantages of this arrangement…he
retained the old version in print.”81 The development section is devoted primarily to sequences extracted from the
main theme. The coda continues toying with the opening theme and contains many interesting transformations of
it—some of them rather tender and quite unlike the original in character.

Page 167 →

The internal movements, in D minor and G minor, employ more transparent textures and a more relaxed mood.
There is no actual scherzo, though the third movement is skittish. The finale is a sonata-rondo form in which equal
voice is allocated to complex imitative counterpoint and exuberantly cheerful melodies of Gypsy character.

Though the premiere of the G-major Quintet was actually given by the Rosé Quartet on 11 November 1890,
Joachim's ensemble took the piece into their repertoire and played it regularly.82 In his letter to Brahms of 22
March 1893, Joachim remarks that “the day before yesterday…we had an excellent performance of your G major
Quintette in which [Alfredo] Piatti's playing was particularly happy. He is very much taken with the beginning,
and I more especially with the deep and original Adagio, one of your most beautiful things.”83

Brahms had thought seriously of retiring after the completion of Op. 111. Happily, this was not the case. His last
opus was the set of organ Chorale Preludes, Op. 122; but before writing them, Brahms wrote four chamber pieces:
the Clarinet Trio, Op. 114, the Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115, and the Two Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120. The catalyst for
these works was the uniquely expressive playing of Richard Bernhard Mühlfeld (1856-1907), the principal
clarinetist of the Meiningen court orchestra. Brahms had performed his Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 82, with the
orchestra in 1881 and subsequently visited the court often for performances of his music. In his letter of 17 March
1891 written from Meiningen to Clara Schumann, Brahms tells her that the orchestra had played his symphonies
and the Variations on a Theme of Haydn, Op. 56a. In addition, they had given Weber's F-minor Clarinet Concerto
with Mühlfeld as the soloist. Brahms concludes, “It is impossible to play the clarinet better than Herr Mühlfeld
does here.”84

Brahms returned to Vienna inspired, content, and with an urge to write. He must have started the pieces shortly
after his return, for already in a letter written from Ischl in July, Brahms remarked:

Baroness [Helene von] Heldburg [of Meiningen] will have told you of a trio for pianoforte, violin and
clarinet, and of a quintet for a string quartet and clarinet. If only for the pleasure of hearing these I am
looking forward to Meiningen. You have never heard such a clarinet player as they have there in
Mühlfeldt [sic]. He is absolutely the best I know…. The clarinet players in Vienna and many other
places are quite fairly good in orchestra, but solo they give one no real pleasure.85

Brahms's A-minor Trio is an important contribution to the relatively seldom used ensemble of clarinet, cello, and
piano. In musical substance, Page 168 →this score surpasses both Mozart's Trio in E-flat, K. 498, and Beethoven's
Trio in B-flat, Op. 11.86

The first movement Allegro commences in A minor but concludes in the major mode. This sonata form dispenses
with the repetition of the exposition. The second theme is a freely inverted paraphrase of the opening theme using
certain elements of canonic imitation. Perhaps too conventional is the bland figuration—ascending and descending
scale passages—that occupies so much of the development.

The Adagio second movement, in D major, is a song form with significant reworking of the return of the opening
idea. The third movement, a triple-meter Andante grazioso, is an essentially lyrical piece. The work lacks a
scherzo.

Of the four movements, the concluding Allegro—marked 2/4 (6/8)—is the most interesting. Brahms returns to A
minor for this sonata-form finale. The second theme appears in E major (meas. 38), and the piano alone states the
closing theme (meas. 58). In the recapitulation, the full ensemble plays the closing theme. The recapitulation omits
the opening theme and begins with the second theme (meas. 136).

The “official” premiere of the Op. 114 Trio took place at the Singakademie in Berlin on 12 December 1891, but
Brahms had played the piece at the Meiningen court on 24 November. The performers who assisted Brahms on
that occasion were Richard Mühlfeld on the clarinet, and Robert Hausmann, who was the cellist of Joachim's
Quartet from 1879 until 1907.

The Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115, was also written during the summer of 1891. Geiringer has pointed out
that the four movements are thematically related, and that “the art of variation forms the basis of this Quintet.”87
Only in the final movement, a set of variations, does the structural premise of the piece become clear.

The head motif that informs the themes of all movements is heard at the outset of the piece, played by the two
violins. The first movement, an Allegro in sonata form with a repetition of the exposition, is intensely lyrical, but
within the movement, dramatic tremolando passages become increasingly prominent. These tremolandos provide
a linking sonority with the second movement, where they reappear in the central section
The second movement, an Adagio in the parallel major, is an expanded A-B-A song form in which the central
segment is multisectional. Brahms calls for muted strings (as in the slow movement of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet,
K. 581). Tremolando passages in the strings recall the first movement. In the opening and closing sections, the
harmonic foundation of the Page 169 →music is clear at all times, yet each voice moves as a different rate, some
anticipating the target harmonies, others arriving at the meeting point tardily, by which time the other voices have
already moved on. These points of missed harmonic coincidence result from linear movements in which melodic
goals are constantly under- or overshot. For example, an anticipated tonic tone is delayed by a leading tone, or
perhaps an appoggiatura; or, as the lines evolve, more complex combinations of double appoggiaturas delay the
tonal objective of the melodic gestures still longer. The result is a sense of longing and Romantic anguish. The
movement's unique effect also stems in part from those passages where the string quartet drops out from time to
time, leaving the unaccompanied clarinet free to employ rubato in the quasi-improvisatory passages where the
beat is subdivided irregularly into groups of five, six, nine, ten, or eleven notes. This movement is one of the most
original, heartfelt, and poignant in all of Brahms's music.

The Andantino, which moves to the key of D major, extracts for its principal theme two three-note motifs from the
first movement but stated here in augmented values. These motifs are subjected to various thematic
transformations in the 2/4-meter section marked Presto non assai, ma con sentimento. The combination of
rhythmic energy and delicacy that characterizes this movement recalls similar moments in Mendelssohn's scores.

The finale, in 2/4 meter and marked con moto, returns us to the key of B minor. Equally important as the tonal
return to our point of origin, however, is the return of thematic ideas that originated in the first movement. In this
closing movement, we have a theme in the design A-B-B with five variations and a twenty-nine-measure codetta.
Each of the variations presents familiar motifs that have been derived from the main theme of the first movement.
The strategy becomes clear in the codetta, where Brahms restates (in the first violin) the opening theme. Striking,
too, is the parallel between the closing measures of the first movement and their only slightly modified
restatement in the final measures of the entire piece.

The first performance of the Clarinet Quintet, which took place on that same concert of 12 December 1891 that
introduced the Trio, was unique since Joachim's ensemble otherwise limited its repertoire to chamber music for
strings. The sound of the group must also have been unique; Mühlfeld played on his beautifully fashioned clarinet
built by the firm of Georg Ottensteiner (Munich), while the others played Stradivarius violins.

In May 1894, Mühlfeld visited Vienna to play in a music festival that had been arranged by some of Brahms's
friends. Following the festival, Brahms set out for his perennial vacation at Ischl. During his vacation, he Page 170
→set to work on two sonatas, one in F minor and another in E-flat, for clarinet and piano. The pair, published as
Op. 120, were his final chamber pieces.

Brahms allowed for the substitution of viola for the clarinet in both sonatas. He also made versions—with slightly
rewritten piano parts—for violin. The two pieces were intended to be played as a pair. The F-minor Sonata
consists of four movements in the sequence Allegro appassionato, Andante un poco Adagio, Allegretto grazioso,
and Vivace. The first movement includes a false reprise in F-sharp minor during the development section and an
extended coda marked sostenuto ed espressivo.88 The two internal movements are in the relative major, A-flat.
The third movement is a good-natured Ländler. The easygoing character of this movement is carried over into the
rondo finale, which moves from the serious, minor mode to the parallel major.

The Sonata in E-flat major is in three movements: Allegro amabile, Allegro appassionato, and Andante con moto.
All three movements are in E-flat, though the central movement is in the minor mode. This second movement,
incidentally, is a tempestuous scherzo with a contrasting sostenuto section in B major as its core. Even this lyrical
episode has a certain tension owing to its asymmetrical phrase shapes. The concluding movement, in 6/8 meter, is
a set of five variations with a brief coda. The theme is a tranquil, chorale-like melody reminiscent of pieces in
Schumann's Scenes from Childhood. Rhythmic variation seems to be Brahms's primary concern here; thus, we
find syncopation in the first variation, triplet arpeggios in the second, thirty-second notes in duple meter in the
third, a syncopated but much slower movement in the fourth, tumultuous cross-rhythms in the fifth—which veers
into the minor mode—and a more relaxed pace in the coda, which returns to the major mode and bears the
performance instruction PiÙ tranquillo.

By the time of his death, Brahms had fulfilled the prophecies that Robert Schumann had made concerning him in
his essay “Neue Bahnen.” The young Brahms had begun awkwardly, with works too heavily burdened by his rich
musical heritage: counterpoint and fugue, antique suites and dances, and allusions to classics of music literature;
however, he eventually assimilated these eclectic musical materials, integrating them into his own distinctive
voice in a way that was simultaneously traditional and progressive.
Page 171 →

NINE
Nationalism in French Chamber Music of the Late Romantic Era:
Franck, Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, and Ravel
MUSIC IN POST-NAPOLEONIC FRANCE
During the first half of the nineteenth century, the musical scene in Paris was dominated by three main operatic
organizations: the Académie Royale de Musique, the Théâtre des Italiens, and the Opéra-Comique. Instrumental
music had a limited appeal to the general public. Amateur players still performed chamber works in domestic
settings. Professional concerts were sometimes given in the halls of instrument manufacturers like those of Erard
and Pleyel.1 Those given by Franz Liszt (1811-1886) at the Salle Erard in January and February 1837 included
some of the piano trios of Beethoven. At the time, these were “totally unknown in Paris,”2 and audiences there
“were convinced that [his] late works were the product of a deranged mind.”3 At the 4 February concert, Liszt
rearranged the items on the program, changing a Beethoven trio with one by Johann Peter Pixis. Apparently,
neither the general public nor the critics were able to tell the difference.4 Probably the most receptive audiences
for chamber music programs in the early part of the century were those at the Paris Conservatory who heard the
wind quintets of Anton Reicha. Outside of this limited populace, there was little appreciation for chamber music.

Page 172 →

CONTINUOUS FORM IN THE WORKS OF CÉSAR FRANCK

Franck's music is highly organic. Generally beginning with a concise motif, he expands the motif immediately to
create melodies as well as contrapuntal lines that produce harmonies. This insistence upon a motif, however,
precludes the separation of stable and unstable harmonic areas that traditionally resulted in formal divisions into
exposition and development. The pervasiveness of generative cells and their metamorphoses in Franck's scores
results in highly cohesive yet unpredictable structures. Form evolves continuously in conjunction with motivic
permutations.

Though generally considered a French composer, Franck (1822-1890) was born to German parents living in
Belgium. He studied from 1830 until 1835 at the Conservatory of Liège, but in May 1835, the family relocated to
Paris. There, Franck began lessons with Reicha, and studied counterpoint, fugue, and composition. Though these
lessons lasted only a year—Reicha died in May 1836—they were influential. Reicha's enthusiasm for chamber
music, and for the music of Beethoven particularly, seems to have been transmitted to the young scholar. That
Franck chose to make his debut as a composer with a set of three piano trios, as Beethoven did, is strong evidence
for this hypothesis, but more convincing still is the compositional method that Franck employed in these pieces,
all written by the year 1840.

FRANCK'S PIANO TRIOS, OP. 1

Exactly when Franck began these early piano trios is unknown. The set of three trios, in F-sharp minor, B-flat
major, and B minor respectively, actually led to a fourth, the Piano Trio in B minor, Op. 2. Franck completed the
trios no later than 1842, the year in which he showed them to Liszt.

The three Trios interested him enormously. He was exceedingly enthusiastic of the finale of the third,
and told Franck that this movement seemed to him complete in itself and worthy of being published
separately, and that, in this form, he would make a point of playing it and making it known in
Germany.5

Even the opening page of the Trio in F-sharp minor contains elements that were to remain characteristic of
Franck's style. The opening theme, stated in the piano, starts with a motivic cell consisting of the tone F-sharp
ornamented with an upper neighbor. During the next several measures, the tone is ornamented with an upper third
and then an upper sixth. In the Page 173 →fourth measure, the object of this intervallic expansion, the F-sharp an
octave higher, is achieved. In the following four measures, the process is reversed, so that the eighth measure is
identical to the first. This theme, in steady quarter notes at the tempo Andante con moto, becomes the generative
cell that appears in each of the piece's three movements. This type of organic integration of gesture and form,
inherited from Beethoven, becomes increasingly prominent in Franck's later works.

The form of the first movement of the F-sharp-minor Trio is also distinctive. Though its five sections are all
rooted in the key of F-sharp, the mode regularly switches from minor to major and vice versa. For the minor mode
segments of the movement (i.e., the first, third, and fifth), Franck uses the expanding subject already described;
for the major-mode sections, he uses a contrasting idea that commences on the third of the key, ascends to the
tonic, then descends through a full octave to the lower F-sharp. This descending gesture links the major-mode
theme with the second half of the minor-mode theme where the same event occurs. Further unifying the two
themes is the steady quarter-note rhythm of each against which Franck counterposes contrasting rhythmic figures:
whole and half notes for the first theme, arpeggiated triplets for the second.

Within the five sections of the first movement, nondiatonic tones appear frequently. The longest and most
harmonically diverse section is the third. Here Franck adds complexities of voice leading: a new melodic figure
using dotted rhythms, triplets based on scalar configurations, and the whole-and half-note countersubject of the
opening section. In short, we get the impression of a development within a sonata form. The F-sharp major theme
as it appears in the fourth section is half the length it had been in the second section. The opening theme is
preserved in its original dimensions (four measures of upward expansion followed by four measures of the
inverse), but in this fifth and final section, pizzicato violin and cello join the piano. The movement combines
aspects of a sonata, a set of double variations, and a rondo. Such hybridization of formal elements fascinated
Franck throughout his career.

The second movement, a five-section scherzo and double trio in B minor, recalls Beethoven. As in the first
movement, the tonal focus remains fixed in all five sections but simply switches from the minor mode to the
parallel major. In the second trio, the B-major theme is a reworking of the F-sharp major theme from the first
movement. Likewise, the final B-minor scherzo section has as its bass line a transformation of the opening figure
from the first movement.

The scherzo leads without pause into the finale, the only movement of Page 174 →the piece that is a conventional
sonata allegro design. The reappearance of the generative cell does not take place until the arrival of the secondary
key (spelled as D-flat major rather than C-sharp major). Franck suggests the motif repeatedly before its actual
statement. In the concluding pages of the movement, the ascending step of the generative cell is repeated in
sequential fashion to achieve an expansive, ascending line in triplets. This line, in turn, suddenly shifts to half-note
values for a luminous restatement of the major-mode subject from the first movement. As in many of Franck's
works, the listener experiences a sense of triumph after adversity.

FRANCK'S LATER CHAMBER WORKS AND THE COMPOSERS OF THE SOCIÉTÉ

NATIONALE DE MUSIQUE
Franck's late chamber works probably would not have been written had it not been for the Société Nationale de
Musique. Many of them had their premieres on programs sponsored by the society. At the time, there was little
encouragement for composers to write instrumental music. Camille Saint-Saëns complained that “a French
composer who was daring enough to venture on to the terrain of instrumental music had no other means of getting
his work performed than to give a concert himself and invite his friends and the critics. As for the general public,
it was hopeless even to think about them.”6

Changing this situation proved a difficult task; nevertheless, Romain Bussine, Alexis de Castillon, Gabriel Fauré,
and Edouard Lalo, under the leadership of Franck and Saint-Saëns, joined together to found the Société in 1871.
Their objective was to

favour the production and diffusion of all serious musical works, published or unpublished, by French
composers; and to encourage and bring to light…all musical experiments, whatever their form may
be, provided they reveal high and artistic ambitions…. In a brotherly spirit, with complete self-
abnegation and with the firm intention of helping each other to the best of their powers, members of
the society will contribute, each in his own sphere of activity, to the study and hearing of the works
they will be called upon to choose and perform.7

Many premieres took place under their auspices, but some were less than ideal. “Sometimes, performers sight-read
their parts…. Lalo's cello and piano sonata, for example, was on the first program without any advance
preparation; so too was one of Franck's early cyclical piano trios from 1841.”8

Page 175 →

Franck's three chamber music masterpieces, the Piano Quintet in F minor (1879), the Sonata in A Major (1886)
for violin and piano, and the String Quartet in D major (1889), were all performed at Société programs.

By the time Franck wrote his Piano Quintet, the genre already had a considerable history: In addition to the Louis
Ferdinand and Schumann quintets, noteworthy French examples that Franck would have known include the A-
minor Quintet, Op. 14 of Saint-Saëns (1855), and the two of Louise Farrenc (1804-1875), A minor, Op. 30 (1842),
and E major, Op. 31 (1845), both scored for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass.9

Franck's three-movement quintet had its premiere on 17 January 1880 with the Marsick-Rémy-van Waefelghem-
Loys string quartet assisted by Saint-Saëns at the piano. The first movement begins in common time with strings
alone. The first violin plays a passionate, dramatic figure (Molto moderato quasi lento) against sustained notes in
the lower voices. By way of contrast, the piano enters with an expressive melody in 12/8 meter. A series of
exchanges between assertive strings and the docile piano ensues. Gradually, the opening gestures are accelerated
to a localized climax that quickly fades into a subdued lyricism from which the principal tempo of the movement,
Allegro, emerges in the piano part. When the strings enter, their figuration focuses largely on the tone F
ornamented first with a chromatic upper neighbor, then with a whole step neighbor, and finally with an upward
leap of a fifth—the same sort of intervallic expansion that appeared years earlier in the Piano Trio in F-sharp. This
gesture is modified at its appearance in the piano part (meas. 90), where it assumes its characteristic contour that
Franck uses for the remainder of the first movement and at the conclusion of the third (meas. 428, Ritenuto un
pochettino il tempo).

Since Franck uses the motifs as basic melodic unit, his harmonizations of them are quite variable; likewise, the
process of development may begin during the course of exposition. Such metamorphoses of musical processes
resulted in unprecedented formal structures, which, as the following anecdote suggests, are often difficult to
understand.

Franck was so delighted by the performance that immediately afterwards he went up to Saint-Saëns to
thank him, saying that he would like to dedicate the work to him and handing over the original MS as
a present…. Saint-Saëns made an ugly face, tossed the MS on to the piano, turned on his heel and
strode away.

…Saint-Saëns was utterly impossible in many ways but this behaviour was unforgivable and showed
complete lack of breeding. Afterwards he expressed himself as hating the passionate warmth of the
Page 176 →work…. The score, however, bore the inscription “To my friend Camille Saint-Saëns”
and that inscription was not erased…. Vincent d'Indy tells the story and there is no reason to doubt its
truth because several times Saint-Saëns expressed his hatred of Franck's music, speaking of it in terms
of the greatest scorn.10

Eight years elapsed before Franck wrote another chamber-music score, the four-movement Sonata in A major for
violin and piano. The germ cell of the sonata, the interval of a third, appears, relaxed and unhurried (Allegretto
ben moderato), in the four-measure piano introduction to the opening statement of the solo violin, which begins
with the same interval. The elaboration of the motif takes place within a loosely structured rounded binary
movement without any separate development section. Momentum accumulates as Franck presses on to the second
movement, Allegro. In this movement, which opens in D minor but concludes in the parallel major, the interval of
the third is filled in, but the continuations of the theme recall the duarations of the theme in the first movement.
The melodic contour of the piano's chords and its imitation in the violin in the Quasi lento section also stems from
the first movement, where it appears first in the piano (meas. 11-13). These are but a few of the subtle links that
connect the sonatas movements thematically.

The third movement, headed “Recitativo-Fantasia,” returns to the relaxed atmosphere of the first movement. It
bears the same designation, Ben moderato. Another fast movement follows. Though the finale has elements of
rondo form, it might be more accurate to think of it as a ritornello structure since the returning theme appears in
keys including C-sharp major and B-flat minor before its final restatement in A major. The refrain is a canon
between the piano and the violin.

The use of recitativo, ritornello structure, and subjects designed for contrapuntal elaboration strongly suggests the
influence of J. S. Bach and other Baroque composers. The fact that the sonata produces such an intensely
Romantic impression, owing largely to its highly chromatic harmonies, may cause the listener to overlook the fact
that the layout of movements in the tempo sequence slow-fast-slow-fast is reminiscent of the old Baroque sonata
da chiesa.

Franck presented the score of the A-major Sonata to the Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931), who was
married in September 1886. On 16 December of that year, Ysaÿe gave the premiere on a program sponsored by
the Cercle Artistique of Brussels. Ysaÿe repeated the work at the Société National program of 31 December 1887
with the pianist Léontine Page 177 →Bordes-Pène (1858-1924). The sonata was an immediate success. Since
Franck eschewed double stops and other technical features that might have restricted its performance to the violin,
it was quickly taken up by flutists.

The first movement, Allegretto ben moderato, opens with a lilting melody in 9/8 meter. This tune, agreeable and
inconspicuous, suggests the intervallic designs of many themes in the ensuing three movements. The second
movement, Allegro, is the focal point of the work. It is a more intense treatment of the initial motivic cells. The
third movement, Recitativo-Fantasia: Ben moderato-molto lento, is fragmented. It recalls the opening piano
chords of the first movement and, after a tortuous, chromatic section, moves on to the movement's main theme.
The finale is a canon between the piano and violin. Beginning in tranquility, the lines grow in intensity as they
move through various major and minor keys. The movement comes full circle at the reprise of the opening
material, but Franck, who generally preferred to conclude his works in a blaze of triumph, adds a coda in which
the violin and piano join in a homophonic concluding statement.

The String Quartet is built upon a few motifs that reappear throughout the work, infusing it with a unity that can
be sensed more than explained. Franck exerted great effort to achieve the organic design of the first movement. In
his biography of the composer, Vincent d'Indy produces two versions of the opening segment that were ultimately
discarded before the definitive, third version was accomplished.11 The first movement is a compound form
combining an A-B-A song form with a sonata design. The outer segments of the song form are in D major, while
the contrasting central section moves from F minor to B-flat minor. The first half of the binary sonata form occurs
between the A and B sections of the song, and the development and recapitulation portions of the second half
appear following the B section of the song. Tonally, the sonata begins in D minor, moves to F major for the
secondary tonality, through diverse keys in the development, and returns to D—with frequent use of the parallel
major—for the recapitulation. These formal divisions can easily be perceived, since Franck maintains a slow
tempo for all segments of the song form while he uses the allegro tempo for sonata elements. The insertion of
slow segments in the first movement among the faster portions of the sonata plan may have been inspired by
Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C Minor, Op. 13 (Pathétique). In Franck's manuscript, he took the unusual step of
indicating the duration of the first movement as “17 minutes.”12
The central movements, a scherzo and slow movement (Larghetto) in the keys of F-sharp and B major
respectively, are more straightforward. Page 178 →The scherzo, played for the most part with muted strings, is a
tripartite form that moves from F-sharp minor to D and then back. In the closing portion of the movement, the
modality shifts to F-sharp major, which becomes the dominant of the ensuing movement. The Larghetto is a song
with a contrasting central portion (Appassionato).

The finale is one of Franck's greatest achievements. After some dramatic introductory gestures, he returns to the
thematic material of the first movement. The opening strain of the song form is suggested in the first violin at the
conclusion of the Poco lento section; it is then stated more extensively in the viola at the Allegro molto in the key
of D major. As the second theme in this sonata-form movement, Franck uses a rhythmic variant (pianississimo) of
the theme advanced by the cello in the exposition of the first movement. In the recapitulation, both themes appear
in D, but they are reversed in a palindromic recapitulation. Between the restatements of these themes, Franck
interjects reminiscences of the internal movements, first of the scherzo, then of the Larghetto.

The Société Nationale de Musique sponsored the Paris premiere on 19 April 1890. According to d'Indy, Franck
was surprised by the resounding success of the quartet.13

THE TRANSFORMATION OF LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH

ROMANTICISM: CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Debussy (1862-1918) stresses moods and atmospheres in his music. His works suggest rather than specify. Tone
color, dynamics, and subtle fluctuations in tempo and texture are essential rather than ornamental; hence, even
when using a small ensemble, Debussy creates extraordinarily colorful scores. His chamber works are few: the
youthful Piano Trio (1880), String Quartet (1893), the Sonata (1915) for cello and piano, the Sonata (1915) for
flute, viola, and harp, and the Sonata (1917) for violin and piano. Debussy's preference for mixed ensembles is an
indication of the importance of sonority. The exceptional work, his string quartet, was probably written largely to
demonstrate his technical mastery.

The piano trio was a strictly practical matter: Debussy, during the summer of 1880, was one of the house
musicians of Countess Nadezhda von Meck. She was vacationing with family and friends at a villa in Fiesole, and
she hired Debussy as pianist and pedagogue—for her children. Von Meck, best known as the benefactor of
Tschaikovsky, wrote to him in October informing him that her “Frenchman” has written a fine piano trio. Several
Page 179 →weeks later, her letter contained an ill-disguised prod that he, too, should write a trio. Debussy's trio,
long considered lost, was reconstructed from manuscript materials and published in 1986. It is a four-movement
work in a conventional, late Romantic manner.14

The string quartet was published as the First Quartet in G minor, Op. 10. It is the only one of Debussy's works that
bears an opus number. Though the tonal focus of the piece is certainly G, that pitch is more often heard as the final
of the Phrygian mode on G than diatonic G minor.

The four movements of the quartet, Animé et tres décidé; Assez vif et bien rythmé; Andantino, doucement
expressif; and Très modéré—Très mouvementé et avec passion, are organized in the manner of Franck, with
germinal motifs and thematic recurrences. In particular, the “recapitulative structure” of the finale seems to
suggest Franck's architectonic approach.15 Distinctive musical materials include whole-tone melodies,
heterophonic textures, and a certain percussiveness in the second movement, a scherzo with two trios.16 The last
two features may have been inspired by the sounds of Javanese gamelan music that Debussy heard as early as
1887 at the Paris Conservatory and subsequently at the Paris World Exposition of 1889. Abram Loft has
commented,

The second movement is perhaps the musical chef's masterpiece in this quartet. At the beginning, as
well as at several points later on, a wonderful mixture of sound flavors is layered together: a bowed
line; a line of steady pizzicato triplets, constituting a drone; a third line of irregularly spaced triplet
groupings, interspersed with occasional duplets; and a drone bass of drumlike, duplet rhythms
enlivened with resonant chords.
 Reserved for one point in the movement is a splash of color produced by massed pizzicati in all four
voices. The middle section is awash in the liquid tremolos of the middle voices…. Near the end (mm.
164-67), Debussy enjoys the side-by-side comparison of bowed and pizzicato settings of identical
melodic figures.17

The premiere of the quartet was given by the Ysaÿe Quartet in Paris on 29 December 1893. Ernest Chausson
(1855-1899), a friend of Debussy's and a composition pupil of Massenet's at the Paris Conservatory, had mixed
reactions to the quartet. His criticisms provoked the designation “Premiere” in the title, since Debussy apparently
intended to write a second, more refined quartet.

Having made a great impression with his Préludeà l'après-midi d'un Page 180 →faune in 1894, Debussy turned
his attention toward larger, programmatic works. He did not revisit the medium of chamber music until shortly
before his death.

In those years of World War I, all of European society was anxiously groping for some sort of stability.
Neoclassicism met sociological and aesthetic needs rather neatly since its reduction of gargantuan Romantic
ensembles was commensurate with economic conditions, and the revival of formal and textural clarity satisfied
cravings for stability, tradition, and community. The war era was particularly difficult for Debussy, since he was
dying with colon cancer; his first wife, Rosalie Texier, had attempted suicide; and his mistress, Emma Bardac,
gave birth to their illegitimate daughter on 30 October 1905. The emotional states of Debussy and Europe
generally rendered them receptive—perhaps even “vulnerable”—to the early music movement. In the summer of
1915, he began to compose a projected set of six sonatas for various instruments. The idea of “six” is itself
neoclassical: During the Baroque, pieces were usually grouped in sets of six. In addition to the three sonatas cited,
we know that Debussy had planned a fourth for oboe, horn, and harpsichord; a fifth for clarinet, bassoon, and
piano, and one of undetermined instrumentation.

Formal designs, tempo indications, and movement labels in the three completed sonatas suggest Debussy's
compositional models: FranÇois Couperin (1668-1733), Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764), and Jean-Philippe
Rameau (1683-1764). Debussy's sonatas were his war effort for France: Beginning with the score for two pianos
of En blanc et noir (in black and white; 1915), he began signing his name “Claude Debussy, musicien franÇais.”
Each of the sonatas, as well as En blanc et noir, exhibits musical materials—especially in their use of modality
and form—that are deliberately at odds with traditional Germanic constructive features.

The cello Sonata may originally have had some kind of programmatic motivation. The first movement is
designated as a Prologue and focuses on two tonal areas, D minor and B-flat minor. The second movement is
labeled Serenade. The finale, nominally in D minor, contains long stretches in Dorian mode on E (i.e., B-natural,
F-sharp, and C-sharp), especially for the statement of the main theme five measures before [7] and its reprise
eleven measures after [10]. The tempo of the movement commences with a quarter note equal to 92 beats per
minute. The additional instructions Animé (lively) and Léger et nerveux (lightly and nervously) apply mainly to
the glittering introductory passage that leads to the statement of the Dorian-mode theme. When the principal
melody enters, however, it is considerably more relaxed. Lyrical sections (Rubato; Lento, molto rubato con Page
181 →morbidezza; and Largo) alternate with more animated passages (Con fuoco ed appassionato; Premier
mouvement; Appassionato ed animando; and finally, Premier mouvement). The alternation of tempos clearly
recalls Baroque sonata repertoire.

The instrumentation of the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp (commonly called the “trio sonata”) was initially to
have been with oboe rather than viola; however, Debussy found it advantageous to use the viola, since it could act
as a buffer between the cantabile lines of the flute and the plucked sonorities of the harp. Its three
movements—Pastorale, Interlude, and Finale—derive from eighteenth-century models: The Pastorale is a free
sonata form with a liberally transformed recapitulation; the performance instruction of the second movement is
“tempo di minuetto”; the third movement uses a conventional harmonic idiom.

The Sonata for Violin and Piano, Debussy's last completed composition, shows another modification of sonata
form. Whereas in the trio sonata Debussy exercised great liberty in the anticipated concluding restatement of
themes of the first movement, he focuses in the Sonata for Violin and Piano on the structural role of tempos.
Though the tempo indication is Allegro vivo, “because of the nature of its melodic material, it does not sound
allegro vivo continuously throughout. In fact, one is not aware of a basic tempo until the music is well past the
first principal theme of the movement.”18

In their three-movement structures, the sonatas maintain a superficial connection with the Mozartian piano sonata,
but the sectional design of the individual movements indicates a synthesis of Baroque elements, as does the
toccata-like figuration in the Prologue of the Cello Sonata (at the instruction Animando poco a poco). An
anachronistic element in all three sonatas is Debussy's use of cyclic unification: In the last movement of the
Sonata for Cello and Piano, the cello arabesques of the final Largo passage recall the piano figuration at the outset
of the first movement, and the repeated note patterns—bowed sometimes over the fingerboard (sur la touche), at
other times at the bridge (sur le chevalet), and in still other instances in ordinary position (position
ordinaire)—allude to the pitch reiterations in the Sérénade; in the third movement of the Sonata for Flute, Viola,
and Harp, before the final acceleration to the cadence, Debussy, retrieves the opening intervals from the Pastorale
(scored for the flute in both cases); in the finale of the Violin Sonata, the first theme of the first movement
reappears.

In these sonatas, Debussy presents a neoclassical view of the genre and mixes musical elements from widely
disparate historical periods: RenaissancePage 182 → modality, Baroque sectional contrast and toccata-like
figuration, Classical three-movement layout, and Romantic recollection of themes. Remarkably, he was able to
forge from this diversity a higher unity that seems natural, logical, and satisfying.

THE FRENCH CONSERVATIVES: CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS AND GABRIEL FAURÉ

Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) entered the Paris Conservatory in 1848 at the age of thirteen and studied there until 1853.
In 1861, he became professor of piano at the École Niedermeyer, where his outstanding student was Gabriel
Fauré. Saint-Saëns was particularly fond of the sonatas of Mozart. The characteristics of this repertoire tempered
his aesthetic principles for his entire career: He was attentive to color but avoided extravagant or shocking
gestures; his works show sentiment, but not excessively; he preferred classical balance and formal order to
experimentation; and—perhaps as a reaction against Wagner—he kept his music free of bombastic philosophical
impediments.

His almost Classical outlook inclined him naturally to write much chamber music. His major contributions include
two sonatas, Op. 75 in D (1885) and Op. 102 in E-flat (1896) for violin and piano; two for cello and piano, Op. 32
in C minor and Op. 123 in F (1872, 1905); the Quartet in B-flat, Op. 41 (1875) for piano, violin, viola, and cello;
two string quartets, the First, Op. 112 in E minor (1899), and the Second, Op. 153 in G minor (1918); the A-minor
Quintet, Op. 14 (1865), for piano, two violins, viola, and cello or double bass; the Piano Trio in F, Op. 18 (1867),
and another in E minor, Op. 92 (1892); and—perhaps his finest pieces—the three sonatas of 1921, Op. 166 in D
major for oboe and piano, Op. 167 in E-flat for clarinet and piano, and Op. 168 in G for bassoon and piano.
Ironically, none of these conservative works achieved anything close to the popular fame of his most idiosyncratic
chamber piece, La carnaval des animaux (Carnival of the animals; 1886, published 1922) for two pianos, two
violins, viola, cello, double bass, flute, clarinet, harmonium, and xylophone.

The Oboe Sonata opens with an Andantino, a simple song form with a contrasting strain in E-flat. As the second
movement opens, we hear, in the key of B-flat, the oboe's unmetered arabesques against slowly arpeggiated
chords in the piano. This introductory music leads to an Allegretto in triple compound meter. The movement is
rounded off by a return to the introductory arabesques. The cheerful finale in duple meter (Molto allegro) is
admirable for the delicacy of the writing. Generous use of triplets Page 183 →prevents any feeling of squareness,
and the oboe's phrases are amply spaced to permit optimal breath and embouchure control.

The Clarinet Sonata is written for the B-flat instrument. The opening Allegretto is interesting metrically, since it
uses two-note figures within compound meter. As a result, the three-note groups within the bar begin alternately
with the first and second notes of the accompanimental figure. The undulating accompaniment is at once stable
and unstable—like a buoy that seems, despite its firm anchoring, to move about on the surface of the waters.
Saint-Saëns expands the sonata to four movements by including a slow movement, Lento, in third position. The
sonata concludes with a reprise of the opening of the first movement.

The Bassoon Sonata, according to the score layout, is a three-movement plan, but the finale opens with extended
slow section, Molto adagio, that leads without pause into an Allegro moderato segment. The Molto adagio
contains arabesques similar to those in the second movement of the Oboe Sonata.

MODAL AND TONAL SYNTHESIS IN THE WORKS OF GABRIEL FAURÉ

Of the French composers active in the early twentieth century, Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was the most important
in the realm of chamber music. His ten major chamber works were composed during two chronological spans, the
first (with four scores) from 1875 until 1905; the second (with six) from 1916 until 1921.

In these works, Fauré used almost every conventional chamber music scoring. One wonders whether, like
Schumann, he had consciously set about a systematic exploration of media. The ensemble sonata is represented by
four works: the sonatas in A, Op. 13 (1876) and E, Op. 108 (1917) for violin and piano; and the sonatas in D, Op.
109 (1917) and G, Op. 117 (1921) for cello and piano. Fauré wrote a single piano trio, Op. 120 in D (1923). He
wrote two piano quartets, the First in C, Op. 15 (1879), the Second in G, Op. 45 (1886); and two piano quintets,
the First in D, Op. 89 (1905), the Second, also in C, Op. 115 (1921). His final chamber score was the String
Quartet in E, Op. 121 (1924), which he never lived to hear.

One cannot help but notice in this roster of scores the almost consistent presence of piano. This detail is not
surprising since Fauré, who entered the École Niedermeyer de Musique Classique et Religieuse (Nidermeyer's
school of classic and religious music) at the age of ten, studied piano there with Camille Saint-Saëns beginning in
1861. He also studied organ, an essential Page 184 →instrument in the Roman Catholic liturgies of nineteenth-
century France.

During Fauré's formative years, he studied the plainchant repertoire extensively. The distinctive features of the
various church modes led him to develop a melodic style rather different from the diatonic and chromatic manner
of the Germans. A further important element of his studies was the improvisation at the organ of accompaniments
for the chants. In the course of inventing harmonies to support these expansive, flowing chant lines, Fauré
discovered many pleasing successions of chords that do not work in quite the same way as conventional functional
harmonic progressions.19

Fauré, in fact, had a career as a church musician. Following his service in the Franco-Prussian War, he became
organist at St. Sulpice, where he worked from 1871 until 1873. In 1874, he succeeded Saint-Saëns as organist at
the Church of the Madeleine in Paris. It was there, in 1887, that he began work on his Requiem Mass. He held the
post until 1905, when he was elected director of the Paris Conservatory. The roster of his students includes the
names of Nadia Boulanger, Georges Enesco, Charles Koechlin, Maurcie Ravel, and Jean Roger-Ducasse. Enesco
(1881-1955), like his mentor, went on to become a prolific composer of chamber music.

Fauré's flexible and often ingenious melodic and harmonic style was tempered by a careful preservation of
Classical formal aspects. All of his chamber pieces are in three or four movements; sonata form is commonly
used; and all ten pieces end in a functional harmonic major mode. Cyclic recollection of themes—though
characteristic of much late-Romantic French music—is limited in Fauré's case to the Second Piano Quartet, and
the Second Sonata for violin and piano.

In his First Sonata for violin and piano, Fauré demonstrated his ability to write in the conventional style of the late
nineteenth century. Bravura string technique, glistening piano passages, memorable tunes, and Romantic
expressivity are paramount. This four-movement work would have been consistent with the fare of the Parisian
salons that Fauré frequented at the time. Of these, the most important were probably those of Saint-Saëns himself
and that of the Princess Edmond de Polignac. In these environs, he socialized with the most important members of
the French musical community: Henri Duparc, Emmanuel Chabrier, Vincent d'Indy, and Edouard Lalo.

The First Piano Quartet had its premiere at one of the 1879 concerts of the Société nationale. This four-movement
work is Fauré's most popular chamber piece, and it is not hard to see why. The first movement is a sonata allegro
form with a bold opening theme in C minor and a more sedate, secondary Page 185 →theme in E-flat major.
Throughout the movement (but especially in the development), the opening theme emerges in many ingenious
thematic transformations. Changing meters (6/8 and 2/4) in conjunction with lyrical piano tunes against pizzicato
strings are the musical materials that produce this magical effect. The Adagio is a modified song form in which
the opening strain appears in a greatly elaborated setting. One wonders whether Fauré did not have Cesar Franck's
Prelude, Fugue, and Variation in mind when he constructed this lovely movement. The finale, in sonata form, does
not use literal quotations from earlier movements; yet elements of the first movement (i.e., its distinctive rhythmic
motifs) and the third (i.e., its generally ascending, conjunct melodies) suggest that Fauré had the cyclic
constructive principle in mind, though his use of it is extraordinarily subtle.

Striking formal procedures emerge in the finale of the First Piano Quintet, where Fauré combines elements of the
exposition's themes to suggest a restatement of the exposition. Similar adaptations of conventional formal designs
are apparent in many of his other chamber pieces.

If anything distinguishes Fauré's melodic manner, it is his decided preference for long, cantabile lines. In many
cases, these are accompanied in the piano part by virtuosic arpeggios based on rich but unusual harmonies.

Fauré's String Quartet is his only chamber score without piano. It exhibits a certain detached serenity that is not
typical of his earlier chamber works. At the time of writing, Fauré was old; he was dying; and he was deaf. His
circumstances paralleled those of Ludwig van Beethoven a century earlier. Fauré could easily identify with
Beethoven's final musical manner, and the fact that that manner (most clearly manifested in the late quartets) was
appropriated for his own final work seems an almost self-conscious and deliberate gesture.

As the quartet unfolds, one feature after another reinforces these valedictory associations. Like the late Beethoven
quartets, Fauré's deviates from the four-movement pattern: It has three movements, Allegro moderato, Andante,
and Allegro. In its textures, Fauré's quartet resembles those of late Beethoven in its preference for contrapuntal
designs based on pervasive imitation. Most telling of all is the melodic style of Fauré's score: The “melodies” are
not melodies at all; they are motifs—usually consisting of four notes—that are more abstract than tuneful. They
bear a remarkable resemblance to the motifs of Beethoven's Galitzin quartets. Like Beethoven, the deaf Fauré
seems to have withdrawn into an ascetic, transcendental state in which contemplation was more powerful than
sensuous experience. The cantabile episodes of the central movement and the intriguing pizzicato passages of the
finale fall upon the ear as recollections of Page 186 →vanished youth. At the same time, Fauré's technical
mastery—and the genre in and of itself—is apropos for this final iteration.

MAURICE RAVEL
The crown jewel of Gabriel Fauré's composition class was Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), a student from an
ethnically diverse household in which the father was French-Swiss, and the mother Basque. Shortly after his birth,
the family relocated to Paris, where the boy began his studies at the Conservatoire in 1889 and continued there
until 1895. He studied piano first, then, in 1897, composition with Fauré, and counterpoint with André Gédalge. In
all areas, he was an exemplary student; however, his four attempts to win the renowned Prix de Rome (in 1901,
1902, 1903, and 1905 respectively) were unsuccessful. Ironically, it was during the years 1902-3 that he composed
his String Quartet in F, a work now regarded as essential repertoire.

Of particular interest to Ravel was the music of Emmanuel Chabrier, Erik Satie, and Claude Debussy. As a mature
composer, he met—through Serge Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes—Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). Ravel
acquired an international reputation early on, when his Pavane pour une Infante défunte was performed in its
original piano solo version at a program given by the Société Nationale. By 1907, he had completed the
magnificent score of Rapsodie espagnole, one of the most virtuosic examples of early twentieth-century
orchestration.

Ravel's chamber scores are few, but the quantity is counterbalanced in this case by the remarkable quality of each
work. His first chamber composition, the String Quartet in F, shows his mastery of traditional pattern forms: The
first movement is a neatly executed sonata-allegro. The second, a scherzo, juxtaposes outer voices in 3/4 time with
inner parts in 6/8 meter. The third, marked Très lent, is sparing of melodic materials. In the third movement,
fragments of the first movement's main theme are manipulated against a slowly changing and serene harmonic
backdrop. The tranquility of this movement stands in dramatic contrast to the verve of the finale (Vif et agité), a
rhythmic labyrinth with constantly changing meters. It is fitting that Ravel chose to dedicate this distinctive score
to his former composition teacher and lifelong friend Fauré. The premiere performance was given in Paris on 5
March 1904.

Ravel's Introduction and Allegro of 1906 uses the string quartet as the core ensemble but adds to it flute, clarinet,
and harp. This unprecedented assembly of sonorities bespeaks the composer's interest in tone color as a
compositional element of equal importance to harmony, melody, and Page 187 →rhythm. In this score, harp is the
featured instrument—and for a very good reason?

In 1810, Sébastien Érard obtained a patent for the double action harp. Even today, his design remains the standard
for harp construction. With his modifications, he enabled the harp to play in the major and minor keys of the entire
chromatic scale. In 1905, just short of a century after Sébastien's pioneering work, the Érard firm commissioned
Ravel to compose a piece for the double-action harp. The commission must have been a balm to Ravel, who, in
1905, had failed for the fourth and final time to win the Prix de Rome. He exerted the greatest care in working out
the details of the score, which had its premiere performance in February 1907.

Ravel thought very highly of this piece, which was dedicated to M. A. Blondel, the director of the Érard firm at
the time, and he chose it to be performed on 23 October 1928, when he was awarded an honorary degree from
Oxford University.

The Allegro portion of the piece is basically a sonata, in which the harp is treated like a solo instrument in a
concerto. Even though Ravel did not play the harp himself, he managed in the cadenza to use each of its seven
pedals in all possible positions. The work is a compositional tour de force that had a lasting impact on all of
Ravel's subsequent orchestral works that included harp.

Many years elapsed before Ravel composed his next chamber piece, the Trio in A minor of 1914. This four-
movement score, dedicated to Ravel's former counterpoint instructor, André Gédalge, was published by Durand in
1915. For its premiere on 28 January 1915 for a concert benefiting the Red Cross, Ravel recruited the services of
Alfredo Casella as pianist, George Enescu on violin, and Louis Feuillard as cellist.20

When Ravel began the Trio, he was near his Basque homeland; accordingly, he used a 3 + 2 + 3 rhythmic pattern
of the Zortzico for the opening Modéré. The second movement is called Pantoum after a Malayan poetic form in
which the second and fourth lines of a stanza become the first and third lines of the following one. Charles
Baudelaire used the design in his Harmonie du soir, and, in all likelihood, these poems became Ravel's model.
Exotic, too, is the third movement, a Passacaille, which uses a repeating bass line, but the movement is designed
as an arch form in which the piano announces the theme, the other instruments join, harmonic plateaus escalate to
a high point, and then the process is reversed to end with the piano solo as the movement had begun. The finale
includes cyclic recollection of themes, but this fact is more sensed than perceived since the theme of the first
movement appears here in inversion. Technical brilliance is required of all players in this scintillating conclusion.

Page 188 →

Between 1920 and 1922, Ravel worked on his rarely heard Sonata for Violin and Cello. This four-movement work
began as a single movement—the first, Allegro—that was dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy in a 1920
issue of Revue musicale. He subsequently added the scherzo second movement (which he wrote twice before he
was satisfied!), the Lento third movement, and the fast finale. This sonata differs from Ravel's previous scores,
and it reflects his assimilation of eastern European techniques as manifested in works by composers like Bartók
and Kódaly. Perhaps the influence of Alfredo Casella played a role in this eclectic approach as well.

Ravel's final score for chamber ensemble was his Sonata for violin and piano, which occupied him from 1923
until 1927. In this very late work, Ravel wrote in an abstract manner that makes no attempt to reconcile the
sonorous differences of the percussive piano sounds and the bowed or plucked violin sounds. The second
movement, “Blues,” is inspired by American jazz, which was a novelty in France at the time. The third and final
movement is a perpetual-motion piece based on a nervous rhythmic ostinato. Though he wrote the piece for
Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, by the time he completed it her arthritis had ended her performing career. Georges
Enesco gave the premiere with Ravel accompanying.

During the composition of the Sonata for Violin and Piano, Ravel completed the score of Tzigane in 1924. The
title of the piece means “Gypsy,” and it was composed specifically for Jelly d'Arányi, the Hungarian violinist for
whom Béla Bartók had written his two sonatas for violin and piano in 1921 and 1922 respectively. It is not clear
which version of Tzigane takes priority: Whether performed with solo violin and orchestra, or solo violin and
piano, the fact is that both are authentic Ravel. Perhaps—as in the case of so many of Ravel's works—either
version may be considered authentic. In any case, Ravel's score shows that he had studied carefully the works of
Bartók and Kodály, and he could handle the demands of Gypsy fiddle playing along with the best of them.

The score of Tzigane is divided into two main sections, a slow, unaccompanied monologue for the violin that
makes extraordinary technical demands on the player, and a contrasting, faster section with accompaniment. This
pattern corresponds to the lassù(a slow, introductory passage to the traditional Hungarian verbunkos dance)
followed by the exuberant Csárdás friszka. In either version, one can only marvel at Ravel's ability to write so
idiomatically for the violin, while incorporating ethnically diverse musical materials that had only recently been
introduced to the western European public.
Page 189 →

TEN
National Schools from the Time of Smetana to the Mid-Twentieth
Century
CENTRAL EUROPE: BED ICH SMETANA AND ANTONÍN DVO ÁK
Throughout the nineteenth century, Italy, France, Germany, and Austria dominated the European musical scene.
Politically, too, the last three of these countries exerted tremendous if not inordinate influence. The assertion of
artistic autonomy thus became a venue for both patriotism and protest among artists working in marginalized
countries, particularly those in the Bohemian regions of the Austrian Empire. The two most important composers
who emerged from these surroundings were Bed ich Smetana (1824-1884) and Antonîn Dvo ák (1841-1904).
Their efforts coincided with the founding of the Chamber Music Association of Prague, which was organized late
in 1876 by leading aristocrats and intellectuals.1

Smetana's principal chamber works include his Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15 (1855), the autobiographical String
Quartet No. 1 in E minor (1876), which he called “From My Life,” and his String Quartet No. 2 in D major
(1883). The Trio is an attractive work in three movements (Moderato, Allegro, Presto) with many tempo variants
in the second and third movements. The first movement contains strong influences of Liszt, whom Smetana knew
personally and whose music he admired. Reminiscences of Robert Schumann can be heard throughout all three
movements. The second movement consists of two contrasting strains that are varied in alternation, but the cello is
relegated to a peripheral role. The finale is a reworkingPage 190 → of an earlier piece. The main idea, a
perpetuum mobile, is interrupted twice: first for a lyrical interlude featuring the cello, and a second time for a
funeral march. When the original tempo returns, it is with the lyric theme thus combining two contrasting ideas.
An abbreviated reprise of the perpetuum mobile serves as a codetta.

Smetana's piano trio is the first of many that were written as elegies. In this case, the death of the composer's four-
year-old daughter provoked the composition. Later memorial trios were written by Dvo ák, Tschaikovsky,
Arensky, Rachmaninoff, and Shostakovich.

Events from Smetana's life provided the programmatic premise for the E-minor String Quartet. According to the
composer's scenario, the first movement recollects his decision to devote his life to music; the second reflects his
enthusiasm for dancing (shown here as a polka) and travel (represented by the call of the posthorn suggested by
second violin and viola); the third recalls his romance with the woman who became his wife; the fourth begins as
a celebration of Smetana's success, but toward the end of the movement, a shrill E3 represents the sound he heard
at the onset of his deafness. The first movement is a sonata form with contrasting themes. The first is explored in
the development, the second dominates the recapitulation, and both are combined in the coda. The second
movement, based on surprisingly elaborate polka tunes, is clearly nationalistic. The third movement is a recitative
followed by a chorale-like theme and variations. Polka and other folk elements resurface in the finale. After the
moment representing Smetana's deafness, musical reminiscences of the first movement fade away, suggesting the
demise of the composer's life and career. The movement dies away as low strings play quiet pizzicato tones.

Smetana's Second Quartet is a compact but complex work. The composer himself anticipated that most would
have difficulty understanding the formal ambiguity of the first movement.2 Of the four movements, the first three
are allegro, and the final one is presto. The second movement, based on a piece from 1849, is a tripartite form with
polkas framing a relaxed passage in the manner of a trio. The third movement is dominated by furious tremolos
amid which the cello introduces a subject that is treated in various contrapuntal textures and techniques though
never achieving the status of a fugue. The finale is a ternary form with a codetta, but its harmonic design is
bewildering. Chord streams flow variously from F major to D minor, but ultimately to D major.

Dvo ák was a prolific composer of chamber music. His principal works include a sonata for violin and piano,
eleven string quartets with opus numbers plus an additional three without, four piano trios, two piano quartets,
threePage 191 → string quintets (one, Op. 77, B49 of 1875, with double bass), two piano quintets, and a string
sextet.3 Among his smaller chamber works are a terzetto for two violins and viola, and a sonatina for violin and
piano. With these twenty-nine works, he outstrips even Brahms in terms of sheer quantity; moreover, we know
that Dvo ák destroyed many of his youthful chamber works.

A violist himself, Dvo ák was enthusiastic about performing chamber music. His first opus was the String Quintet
in A minor (1861), for two violins, two violas, and cello. The String Quartet in A, Op. 2 (1862) was written in
celebration of the composer's rejection from military service. (As a Bohemian, he had no interest in supporting the
Habsburg monarchy.) In short, the performance and composition of chamber music was an integral part of Dvo
ák's life.

Some of Dvo ák's chamber scores merit attention because of their unique historical significance, while others
simply have become staples in the repertoire. The string quartets in D minor, Op. 34, B75 (1877), E-flat, Op. 51,
B92 (1879), and F, Op. 96, B179 (1893), and the String Quintet in E-flat, Op. 97, B180 (1893) are conspicuous
among the former category. Op. 34 is in four movements: Allegro, Alla polka: Allegretto scherzando—Trio,
Adagio, and Poco allegro. The most distinctive movement is the second, which elevates the polka to the status of
high art in much the same fashion that Chopin treated the mazurka. The movement is not without irony, however,
since it contains two conspicuous allusions to the finale of Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 18, No. 6 in B-flat, La
malinconia. That Dvo ák admired Beethoven's music above all other is well known, but the reason for the
quotation probably has more to do with the fact that Dvo ák dedicated this piece to Brahms. Dvo ák had good
reason to express his gratitude to Brahms since he had received stipends from the Austrian government for five
years from 1874 to 1878. Eduard Hanslick and, beginning in 1875, Brahms sat on the selection committee.4 In a
letter of 23 January 1878, Dvo ák made the initial request to dedicate the quartet to Brahms. The latter responded
saying:

You write somewhat hurriedly. When you add the many missing sharps, flats, and naturals…look also
now and then rather closely at the notes themselves, the voice leading, etc. I hope you will forgive
me; to express such wishes in these matters to a man like you is very presumptuous! For I accept
them very thankfully as they are, and the dedication of the quartet I would regard as an honor done to
me.5

Brahms made a point of advancing Dvo ák and his music. He not only put him in touch with his own publisher,
Fritz Simrock, but he recommendedPage 192 → his compositions to Joseph Joachim and Josef Hellmesberger.
Brahms and Dvo ák thus began a relationship that soon developed into an enduring friendship. During Dvo ák's
historic visit to the United States from September 1892 until April 1895, Simrock was reluctant to send proofs
across the Atlantic for correction; he therefore prevailed upon Brahms to do the proofing and editing of the String
Quartet in F, Op. 96 (American), the String Quintet in E-flat, Op. 97, and the Dumky Trio, Op. 90 as well as
several orchestral works. The final act of friendship took place in April 1897, when Dvo ák was one of the
pallbearers at Brahms's funeral.6

Jean Becker, the founder and first violinist of the Florentine Quartet, requested the E-flat Quartet, Op. 51. It was
his wish that Dvo ák write a piece using Slavonic musical elements. Dvo ák worked on the piece from late 1878
until March 1879. It includes a variety of ethnic elements. Early in the first movement, the sonority of plucked
strings plays a conspicuous and consistent role. This applies equally to the remaining three movements. Plucked
strings, though plentiful in ensembles of Renaissance Europe, virtually vanished from the West in the Baroque
era; however, the sound continued to be cultivated in folk ensembles of central and eastern Europe.

In the second movement, Dvo ák writes some of his most inspired dumky. The dumka (singular) takes its
inspiration from Slavonic ballads, usually of a brooding character; thus, dumky are something along the lines of
American blues. The movement begins with pizzicato strings suggesting the folk instruments that would have
been used to accompany the singing of a ballad. The ballad melody, in turn, is approximated in the highly
coloristic and expressive melodies of the upper strings. In this particular set of dumky, Dvo ák explores not only
the baleful sort of dumka, but also more energetic sorts. At one point, he inserts something quite like a Viennese
waltz segment. At other points contrast is provided by the rhythmic intricacies of the furiant.

The intensely lyrical Romanza provides maximal contrast with the energetic finale, which, as so often with Dvo
ák, is a sort of perpetuum mobile interspersed with fugatos and other interesting contrapuntal features. The
prevailing rhythm of the finale stems from the skocna, a Bohemian and Moravian leaping dance in duple meter
often performed by males who attempt to outdo each other in the height of their jumps.

The F-major Quartet, Op. 96, is known as the American Quartet because Dvo ák composed the piece while
vacationing with his family in Spillville, Iowa, a village of Czech immigrants who maintained their cultural
traditions. Legend has it that Dvo ák used various melodies andPage 193 → rhythmic patterns that he had
encountered in African American and Native American musics; however, such claims have not been
authenticated. At least, though, it is clear that national music was an issue that Dvo ák was contemplating at the
time. This is clearly the case with the String Quintet, Op. 97. The Larghetto (third movement) is a set of five
variations on an original theme that Dvo ák composed to fit Samuel Francis Smith's text of 1831, “My country ‘tis
of thee.” The premieres of Opp. 96 and 97 were presented on New Year's Day, 1894, by the Kneisel Quartet in
Boston.

Among Dvo ák's chamber works for piano and strings, the Trio in F minor, Op. 65, B130 (1883), the A-major
Piano Quintet, Op. 81, B155 (1887), and the Dumky Trio, Op. 90, B166, are the most frequently performed and
recorded. The F-minor Trio reveals many distinctive traits of Dvo ák's style. Performers at the premiere on 27
October 1883 included Ferdinand Lachner, violin, Alois Neruda, cello, and Dvo ák at the piano. Its four
movements are Allegro, Allegro grazioso, Poco adagio, and Allegro con brio. The third movement shows Dvo
ák's penchant for segmented melodies that do double duty in either linear or contrapuntal contexts. The tune is
bifunctional in its modality, as well, and Dvo ák uses it within A-flat major and G-sharp minor. The finale is a
percussive furiant worked out in a sonata-rondo form. This is a distinctively Czech dance in which measures of
triple and duple meter appear in alternation. Curiously, the episodes are Viennese waltzes. At the time, Dvo ák
was in a dilemma: As early as 1878, Brahms had hinted that Dvo ák should move to Vienna.7 According to the
composer's son Otakar,

Brahms tried to persuade Father to move to Vienna…. [He] offered as inducement…all of his capital,
property and cash because Father had six children. Included in the offer were a couple of tenement
houses located in Vienna…. Father thanked Brahms and declared that he was very impressed and
moved by the surprising offer, but he was born a Czech and would stay a Czech for the rest of his
life.8

Brahms did not give up easily, and apparently recruited the assistance of Eduard Hanslick to pressure Dvo ák. In a
letter of 11 July 1882, Hanslick pointed out the advantages that Dvo ák would gain by moving to Vienna.9 In the
closing moments of the finale, Dvo ák recalls the theme of the first movement, reminisces nostalgically on the
waltz tune, then launches into a triumphant coda based on the furiant. Perhaps he thought that Brahms would
better understand his refusal to move to Vienna if he did so in music.

The Piano Quintet, Op. 81 is actually Dvo ák's second quintet. The first, a three-movement piece written in 1872,
is also in A major. Despite aPage 194 → thorough revision of it in 1887, Dvo ák was dissatisfied with the results.
He started afresh and completed Op. 81 in that same year. The first movement, Allegro ma non tanto, is a vast
sonata form with a repeated exposition. Dvo ák moves from A major to C-sharp minor for the secondary tonality.
The development section leads to an unusual recapitulation in which the music of the secondary key returns in F-
sharp minor. The coda thus plays a vital role in reinstating the primary tonality of the piece. The second
movement opens with a short introduction leading to a sonatarondo in which the refrain is a dumka. Perhaps this
movement suggested to Dvo ák the idea of his Op. 90, the Dumky Trio. The third movement is a Czech furiant
worked into the form of a scherzo and trio. The theme of the trio is a thematic transformation of the opening
scherzo melody. The finale, in rondo form, includes the most elaborate counterpoint of the score.

Dvo ák's Op. 90 is an atypical work. Much of the music is light and entertaining. The piece is a string of six
dumky alternately in baleful but sometimes spritely moods (E-minor, C-sharp minor, A major, D minor, E-flat
major, C minor); however, a dumka originally designated a Ukrainian folk ballad of somber character. Apparently
Dvo ák had a rather liberal interpretation of just what a dumka is.

Dvo ák's last two string quartets, Opp. 105 and 106, were completed after his return to Czechoslovakia. Op. 106
in G major was actually finished before the A-flat Quartet, Op. 105, which he had started before leaving America.
Both are in four movements, but the scherzo comes in second place in Op. 105 whereas it is in third place in Op.
106. The Adagio of the G-major Quartet roams through various tonalities in free variations on two contrasting
themes. The concluding Allegro recalls the closing theme of the first movement.

NORWAY: EDVARD GRIEG

The musical talent of Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) was the discovery of the vivacious Norwegian violinist Ole Bull.
Upon his recommendation, the young man was sent in 1858 to the Leipzig Conservatory, where he remained until
1862. He thus inherited the German Romantic legacy of Mendelssohn and Schumann. He became known as a
nationalist mainly as a consequence of his founding of the Norwegian Academy of Music in 1867; nevertheless,
his music is devoid of Norwegian folk tunes, indigenous dances, or other nationalistic elements, and he spoke
scornfully of attempts to write nationalistic music. (Curiously, one of the rare instances ofPage 195 → ethnic
dance elements in his music is the Italian saltarello that appears in the finale of his G-minor String Quartet, Op.
27.)

His chamber works include the Sonata in F, Op. 8 (1865), the Sonata in G, Op. 13 (1867), and the Sonata in C
minor, Op. 45 (1887), all for violin and piano, the String Quartet in G minor, Op. 27 (1878), and the Sonata in A
minor, Op. 36 (1883) for cello and piano. A projected Piano Trio, String Quartet in F, and Piano Quintet in B-flat
remain incomplete.10

The Third Violin Sonata is representative of Grieg at his best. Its three movements, Allegro, Allegretto, and
Allegro animato, provide equal portions of virtuosity and lyricism. Formal designs are clear, and writing for both
instruments is idiomatic.

RUSSIA: MIKHAIL IVANOVICH GLINKA, PYOTR ILYICH TSCHAIKOVSKY, AND

NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857) is the earliest important figure in the Russian school. Most of his chamber
works are youthful compositions that are heavily influenced by western European styles; however, some are
scored for unusual combinations of winds and strings, and the double bass is often included. Glinka's most popular
chamber score is his four-movement Trio pathétique (1832) for clarinet, bassoon, and piano.

Pyotr Ilyich Tschaikovsky (1840-1893) studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory from 1862 until 1865, at which
time he joined the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory. During the last three years of his studies, he composed ten
individual movements for chamber ensembles including string trio and quartet, horn quartet, string quartet with
harp, piano sextet (i.e., piano quintet with double bass), and Harmoniemusik for pairs of flutes, oboes, and
clarinets with English horn and bass clarinet. By the time he wrote his “first” string quartet, he had already had
extensive experience.

Tschaikovsky's three string quartets, in D, F, and E-flat minor respectively, all consist of four movements in
conventional pattern forms; however, distinctive Russian elements are apparent in the use of folk songs, such as
the tune from the Kaluga region that is the basis of the Andante cantabile of the First String Quartet, Op. 11
(1871), in the use of changing meters, as in the Scherzo of the Second String Quartet, Op. 22 (1874), and in the
use of modal scales, as in the trio of the third movement of the Third String Quartet, Op. 30 (1876). Much of this
music acquired nationalistic associations after the fact: The Andante cantabile of the First String Quartet, for
instance, was performed at a concert in 1876 given in honor of Leo Tolstoy, who much admired the work and
expressed his appreciation for it.Page 196 → In the Third Quartet, the textures of the third movement, Andante
funebre e doloroso, were suggested by the chanting of the Russian Orthodox funeral rite. Tschaikovsky arranged
this movement only for violin and piano in 1877. The association was a purposeful one: The Quartet is dedicated
to the memory of Ferdinand Laub, professor of violin at the Moscow Conservatory. At the premiere, given at the
Conservatory on 18 March 1876, the first violin part was performed by Jan H imali, Laub's successor.

The death of another colleague inspired Tschaikovsky to write his Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50. Nikolai
Rubinstein, a virtuoso pianist, founder of the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society, the Moscow
Conservatory, and the brother of Anton Rubinstein, died in Paris in March 1881. He had been an advocate of
contemporary Russian music, and his support for Tschaikovsky was invaluable. The score of the Trio bears the
inscription “To the memory of a great artist.”

Writing to his benefactor Nadezhda von Meck on 25 January 1882 after completing the piece, Tschaikovsky
remarked: “I can say with some conviction that my work is not all bad. But I am afraid, having written all my life
for orchestra…[that] I may have arranged music of a symphonic character as a trio, instead of writing directly for
the instruments. I have tried to avoid this, but I am not sure whether I have been successful.” The piece is very
grand, to be sure. Its unusual form consists of two large movements, the first, an extended sonata containing four
main themes, is subtitled “Pezzo elegiaco.” The second movement opens with a lyric theme in E major that
Tschaikovsky heard sung by Russian peasants in May 1873 in the company of Rubinstein. It provides the basis for
a dozen variations plus a coda. Apparently, each of these variations was associated with events of Rubinstein's
life. Though we are in the dark about such details, the variations are highly distinctive: the sixth is an extended
waltz; the eighth, a three-part fugue; and the tenth is a mazurka featuring the piano. The final variation and coda
emphasize the obsequial character of the piece. The theme of the first movement returns in a dirge-like context,
and the coda (Lugubre) invokes the rhythm of a funeral march.

Tschaikovsky's final chamber score was his string sextet called Souvenir de Florence, which he wrote after a
vacation in that city. The first version of it was written in 1890, but he revised it extensively in late 1891 and in
January 1892.

Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) was a naval officer by profession, but after meeting Mily Balakiereff in 1861, he
became increasingly interested in music. These two plus the composers Alexander Borodin, Cesar Cui, and
Modest Mussorgsky constituted the nationalistic group known as thePage 197 → “Mighty Five.” Rimsky wrote a
great deal of chamber music, including five string quartets (1875-97), the String Sextet in A major (1876), and the
Quintet in B-flat (1876) for flute, clarinet, horn, bassoon, and piano. The most conspicuously nationalistc of these
is his String Quartet on Russian Themes (1879). The Quintet for piano and winds is a skillfully written piece in
three movements concluding with a rondo finale. In this movement, Rimsky provides each of the players with
ample opportunity to demonstrate technical facility. In part, this singular facility at writing idiomatically for winds
was acquired through his professional work as inspector of navy bands, a position he obtained in 1873, which
required him to supervise the constitution of the ensembles, the purchase of instruments, and their maintenance.

NATIONAL SCHOOLS IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Nationalistic sentiments provided the immediate cause for World War I when a Serb nationalist assassinated
Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife in June 1914. When the map of Europe was redrawn at the conclusion of
the war, one of the most significant changes was the creation of Czechoslovakia. The most important Moravian
composer at the time was Leos Janá ek (1854-1928), who had won international fame with his opera Jen fa
(1904; prem. 1916). At the time Czechoslovakia became an independent nation, Janá ek was already sixty-four
years old; nevertheless, the event seems to have had a revitalizing effect on him. Though he had written various
pieces for violin or cello and piano during the 1870s and 1880s, his three major chamber works, two string
quartets (1924, 1928) and a wind sextet (1924), were written after the founding of the Czech nation.

The First String Quartet was inspired by Leo Tolstoy's short story “The Kreuzer Sonata.” Tolstoy's story, which
alludes to Beethoven's Sonata in A major, Op. 47, for violin and piano, is a story of a tragic marriage. Pózdnyshev
introduces his wife, who plays the violin, to his friend Trukhachévski, who plays the piano. Together, they
perform Beethoven's sonata for a gathering of friends. Several days later, Pózdnyshev arrives home unexpectedly
and finds his wife with Trukhachévski. Presuming the worst, he draws a scimitar from his coat and murders her.

Within the context of the First String Quartet, the tense relationship between Pózdnyshev and his wife is apparent.
Plaintive, baleful themes in long phrases are set in opposition with nervous, aggressive motifs whose articulation
and phrasing are carefully indicated in the score—for the purpose of highlighting the warped outlook of
Pózdnyshev. From a formalPage 198 → point of view, this juxtaposition of subjects and countersubjects is
fascinating: Traditionally, opening themes, secondary themes, and closing themes had been manifestly different in
character and had been designed to complement the polarity of tonalities in conventional pattern forms. In Janá
ek's quartet, however, the contrasting themes appear simultaneously. The programmatic element thus alters the
musical form, even though Janá ek preserves—in a token kind of way—the proper design of a four-movement
string quartet.

Janá ek's four movements are not ordered according to the standard plan. The first movement is an Adagio that
opens with an ambiance of grief and sadness. Later, a contrasting theme, folklike in character, recalls the
intervallic structure of the Lydian mode; but as it is stated in the quartet, the theme sounds more ironic and
agitated than folksy. The second movement is simply marked Con moto (with movement), as are the third and
fourth. In the last two movements, tempo alterations appear within the movements as follows: Vivace, Andante,
Tempo primo; and Adagio, Maestoso, Tempo primo.

The third movement offers many opportunities to study Janá ek's constructive methods. It contains ostinato
patterns, superimposed ostinato patterns, additive rhythms, and many special effects that are highly idiomatic for
solo strings when played by virtuoso performers. The third movement is the only one that contains a quotation
from Beethoven's Kreuzer Sonata.

In all four movements, the configurations of half and whole steps do not conform to conventional scales or modes;
thus, motivic contours are crucial. In the finale, Janá ek takes pains to establish clear links with the first
movement. These are marked with many performance instructions that, though they cannot be assigned to specific
elements of Tolstoy's story, suggest a dramatic plan that Janá ek had envisioned.

As this dramatic piece unfolds, Janá ek capitalizes on the sonorous potential of the string quartet in ways unusual
among western European composers. The sound of plucked strings was common among folk ensembles of eastern
Europe. In all four movements, plucked, pizzicato tones are pervasive, as is the more aggressive pizzicato in
which the string slaps against the fingerboard (often called “Bartók pizzicato,” even though Monteverdi had used
it in 1624).

The Wind Sextet, Youth, is so called because at the time of its composition, Janá ek was assembling materials
about his own childhood for his biographer Max Brod. Reminiscences were stimulated, as well, by a
commemorativePage 199 → volume that was being issued by the Czech publisher Adolf Veselí in honor of the
composer's seventieth birthday.

The four movements of this suite for winds are marked Allegro, Andante sostenuto, Vivace, Allegro animato:
Presto. The second movement is a theme with variations, but its meters are upset by unexpected groupings. The
third movement, in which the piccolo is featured, is a scherzo with two trios. The piccolo was intended to recall
the sounds of fifes used in the Prussian recruitment bands that Janá ek would have heard as a boy attending the
Augustinian monastery in Brno. The finale recalls melodic and rhythmic motifs from the opening movement.
The first performance was given by six local virtuosi of Brno on 21 October 1924, but for a performance in the
following month, on the 23 of November, Janá ek recruited seven players from the Czech Philharmonic (with an
additional player to render the piccolo part).11

Janá ek called his Second String Quartet “Intimate Letters.” The title alludes to the many letters—about six
hundred!—he had written to Kamila Stosslová following their meeting in 1917.12 Janá ek spoke to Kamila openly
in his letters about the romantic significance of their relationship and its impact on his quartet.13 Significant, too,
is the original instrumentation that Janá ek had envisioned: with viola replaced by viola d'amore! As it is, the
composer decided against the substitution; nevertheless, the viola is surely the dominant instrument in the
ensemble. Perhaps the association of Kamila with this instrument was suggested by Liszt's Faust Symphonie, in
which Faust is romantically involved with a much younger woman, who is represented in the second movement
by the sound of viola.

When Janá ek died, on 12 August 1928, it was in the arms of Kamila Stosslová rather than those of his wife,
Zdenka. The sincerity of the Second String Quartet is confirmed further by the fact that shortly before his death,
Janá ek had changed his will to the advantage of Kamila, who died seven years later in 1935.

BARTÓK, KODÁLY, AND HUNGARY

Béla Bartók (1881-1945) and Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) were avid nationalists. Nearly contemporary, they both
decided to study at the Budapest Conservatory. Bartók began in 1899 and finished in 1903; Kodály began in 1900,
completed his graduate work in 1906, and was appointed in that year to the faculty. In 1919, he became the
director. Bartók was similarly successful, and in 1907, he became professor of piano, a post that hePage 200 →
held until 1934, when he resigned to join the faculty of the Budapest Academy of Science.

Both had gone to Budapest to study with Hungarian nationalists rather than German pedants attempting to copy
the style of Mendelssohn, or Viennese snobs who supposed that their geographical location made them the rightful
heirs to the Classical tradition. The case of Ernö Dohnányi (1877-1960), whose training there from 1894 to 1897
quickly led to a successful career as a pianist and composer, was an encouraging precedent.14

Filled with enthusiasm, they were disappointed to encounter in Hans Kössler, their composition teacher, exactly
what they had hoped to avoid. Kössler, a cousin of Max Reger, was a thoroughgoing German with little sympathy
for Hungarian nationalism.

Nationalism led both Bartók and Kodály into ethnomusicology. Bartók first investigated folk songs in 1903, when
he sent his mother two melodies and inquired whether she knew the words for them. By 1905, he and Kodály had
joined forces on folk research.

Kodály's motivation seems to have been purely nationalistic, and he limited his purview of folk culture to
Hungary. Bartók, however, quickly became interested in a wider variety of ethnic repertoires. Before long, he was
traveling among Arabs, Bulgars, Romanians, Slovakians, Turks, and Walachians as well. One of his final research
projects was the volume entitled Serbo-Croatian Folk Songs, which gives the texts and music for seventy-five
women's songs that were preserved on phonodiscs in the Milman Parry Collection of Columbia University.15 It
was this broad perspective of diverse folk cultures—largely anthropological in nature—that led Bartók to his
faculty position at the Budapest Academy of Science.

In his early, unpublished chamber pieces (several sonatas for violin and piano, a piano quartet, a string quartet,
and a piano quintet, all composed between 1898 and 1904), folk elements are minimal. In later works, he
synthesized western European and non-Western materials. These mature works include six string quartets
composed between 1909 and 1939, two sonatas for violin and piano (1921, 1922), two rhapsodies for violin and
piano (1928), a collection of forty-four duos for two violins (1931), the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
(1937), and Contrasts for violin, clarinet, and piano (1939).16

Ostinato patterns, pentatonic and modal melodies and harmonies, plucked string sonorities, percussion,
declamatory rhythms inspired by the Hungarian language, heterophonic textures, rapidly reiterated tones, and
melodic arabesques ornamenting structural tones figure prominently in Bartók's works. All of these elements take
on a new life when applied toPage 201 → western European musical instruments and forms. He adds idiosyncratic
features too, especially symmetrical structures, and a fascination with the sounds of nature mirrored in what the
composer called “night music.”

Among the Western classical composers that Bartók admired, Beethoven and Liszt figure prominently, probably
because Bartók was a pianist and their works constituted the bulk of his repertoire. The motivic cell as the basic
building block in Beethoven, and the thematic transformations in Liszt are combined in Bartók's music, especially
in contrapuntal passages where imitation itself becomes a venue for transformations beyond “real” and “tonal”
variants. Complex harmonies, polymodality, and polytonality are often by-products of music predicated on
motives. If, for instance, a motif ascends from tonic through supertonic to mediant, then its literal inversion will
fall from tonic through subtonic to flatted submediant. The ascending motif thus falls within the diatonic major
mode, whereas the mirror image of the motif stems from the parallel minor key. In addition to this type of motivic
chromaticism, Bartók also uses ornamental chromaticism, where a structural note is approached through or
ornamented by a chromatic neighboring tone.

The Fourth String Quartet (1928; premiered by the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet, 1929) is a fine example of all
these features. Its five-movement plan is symmetrical: The outer movements use the same motives, as do the
second and fourth. The central movement is constructed in three segments, with the outer sections framing the
central night music. The first movement is a sonata form, but, because of its five movements, Bartók used two
scherzos, one as the second, and another as the fourth movement. The first scherzo, in a vigorous 6/8 meter with a
contrasting trio in simple duple meter, is eerily evocative because of its use throughout of mutes on all
instruments. This special sound effect provides a further link with the fourth movement, which is played pizzicato
throughout on all instruments. In many instances, Bartók requires the string to be plucked with such force that it
slaps against the fingerboard, thereby transforming the strings into genuine percussion instruments.17 The finale,
which begins with screaming dissonances and a wild, Magyar melody, has an ample store of distinctive sonorities,
too, especially col legno chords (i.e., played with the wooden part of the bow rather than the strings). These
special effects are paralleled in the first movement by microtonal glissandos; hence, virtually all aspects of this
five-movement work are subsumed within a symmetrical design.

The two sonatas for violin and piano were both written for Jelly d'Aranyi, a Hungarian violinist who was living in
England at the time. Despite their aggressively chromatic and dissonant harmonic style, BartókPage 202 →
performed them regularly during his concert tours—particularly the Second Sonata, which he preferred—and they
were widely acclaimed.

The First Sonata includes three movements in the conventional sequence, Allegro, Adagio, Allegro, but
observance of conventions ends there. Each instrument functions autonomously, and there is no attempt to find
common ground for melodic materials. This is a characteristic that distinguishes the Second Sonata as well. The
appeal of these pieces arises from the binary relationship of instruments, and from the highly idiomatic and
virtuosic writing that Bartók provides for each player. The opening Allegro of the First Sonata follows the outline
of sonata form in only the most general way. The second movement has a clearer design, which includes three
large sections, each with two subsections: the first for unaccompanied violin, the second for the instrumental duo.
The first and third sections are related by their more transparent textures, especially in the solo violin segments.
The middle section, by contrast, is more thickly scored. Except for the central, lyric episode, the finale is a rondo
written in perpetuum mobile rhythms that evoke Hungarian peasant music. Primitive fiddling, with its insistence
on open strings, is here converted to virtuosic writing that clings to the G-string for many measures at a time.
Pizzicato and glissando passages provide contrast within the episodes.

The Second Sonata, much more compact than the First, is in two movements, Molto moderato and Allegretto.
This succession of movements may have been inspired by the slow lassùand the fast friss pairings of verbunkos
music.
The Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion is actually a quartet for two pianists and two percussionists. At the
time, this scoring was absolutely unprecedented. Subsequently, it became the model for at least two important
compositions. Bartók's sonata and its descendants are discussed in chapter 15.

The clarinetist Benny Goodman commissioned Contrasts. Joseph Szigeti was the violinist, and Bartók the pianist.
Bartók began the piece with the premise of the pairing of the lassù(Verbunkos) and the friss (Sebes). He
expanded that pattern by the insertion of a slow, intermediary movement labeled Pihenö (rest). Bartók requires an
A clarinet for the first and second movements and the trio of the third, with the rest of the last movement played
on B-flat clarinet. In the last movement only—and there, for only part of the movement—Bartók uses scordatura
for the violin, retuning the G and E strings to G-sharp and E-flat. He advises in the score that the player have two
fiddles at hand, one with the adjusted tuning, the other with the conventional tuning, so that at the appropriate
moment, the change may be made expeditiously.

Page 203 →

The chamber music of Kodály consists exclusively of early works written before he achieved fame in 1923 with
the premiere of Psalmus Hungaricus. Thereafter, he composed only for large ensembles. His principal chamber
pieces include two string quartets, Opp. 2 and 10 (1909, 1918), the Sonata, Op. 4 (1910), for cello and piano, the
Sonatina (1909) for cello and piano, the Duo, Op. 7 (1914), for violin and cello, and the Serenade, Op. 12 (1920),
for two violins and viola. In addition, there are several youthful works for string trio, string quartet, and violin and
piano.

The Sonata for cello and piano was a two-movement work originally, but Kodály later decided to add the
conventional, third movement. Having completed the movement, he determined that it did not quite match the
style of the earlier piece; thus, the Sonatina came into being. It was published separately in 1965.

The First String Quartet, monothematic and cyclic in structure, includes a tune very much like the Hungarian folk
song “Lement a nap a maga járásán” (The sun descended along its path), but Kodály stated that the similarity to
the tune was coincidental and not planned precompositionally; nevertheless, he spotted the parallels himself and
placed the tune as an introduction to the first movement that he had already written. The coda of the movement
is—quite disturbingly—a funeral march. The second movement makes extensive use of counterpoint, first as
simple fugato, then as a more complex combination of subjects in a double fugue. The third movement is a
scherzo and trio, and the finale consisting of an introduction followed by six variations and a coda. Snippets of
themes from the first and third movements are heard in this introduction. The quartet is dedicated to Kodály's
wife, Emma, perhaps because its premiere on 17 March 1910 at Budapest's Royal Hall coincided with her
birthday; or, perhaps because she wrote the fourth variation. Emma's hand in the composition may account for the
unusually accessible and traditional character of the finale.

The premiere of the First Quartet was an important event because it occasioned the formation of the Waldbauer-
Kerpely Quartet, an ensemble that consisted initially of Imre Waldbauer, János Temesváry, Antal Molnár (who, in
1936, published the first monograph devoted to Kodály), and Jeno Kerpely. Just two days after premiering
Kodály's quartet, the gave the premiere of Bartók's First String Quartet. The ensemble continued to promote new
music until 1945, when Waldbauer and Kerpely immigrated to the United States.

Kodály's Duo for violin and cello is a highly contrapuntal work in three movements. In the second movement
(Adagio), Kodály transforms thePage 204 → theme into the subject of a double fugue. Throughout the piece, the
composer's own performance skills as a violinist are apparent.

The Serenade for two violins and viola was an especially important work for Kodály's career: It was featured in
1920 at a preliminary conference of what would become in 1922 the International Society for Contemporary
Music. At subsequent ISCM festivals, Kodály's works were frequently heard.

Kodály's Second String Quartet is more adventurous and tautly constructed than the First. It consists of two
movements, an Allegro followed by a multisectional Andante, quasi recitativo—Allegro giocoso. The former is
roughly in sonata form, but its themes are transformations of two main motifs: The core of the first, stated by the
first violin after four introductory measures, is a pentatonic melody; the second, which appears in the second
violin part at measure 13, uses three pitches (D, E, G-sharp) in rotating metrical contexts. Both motifs pass among
all the instruments, and their interactions These same motifs provide the basis of the recitativo that opens the
second movement, but their subsequent expansions result in a wide variety of distinctly tuneful melodies. Within
this compact quartet, Kodály synthesizes pentatonic and chromatic elements, motifs and melodies, as well as
linear and harmonic materials to produce a highly organic yet hybridized work.

CHARLES IVES AND THE UNITED STATES

Ives (1874-1954) began his career in music at age fourteen when he became the organist of the First Baptist
Church of Danbury, Connecticut, in 1889. Following his studies at Yale from 1894 to 1898 with the composers
Horatio Parker and Dudley Buck, Ives returned to the organ bench and remained active in that capacity until
resigning his post at Central Presbyterian Church in New York City in 1902. His experiences were thus practical
and academic. His practical nature as well as his admiration for the New England transcendentalist thinkers
inclined him toward the music of his environment, such as hymn tunes, patriotic songs, dance melodies, and band
music.18

Ives cherished the interaction of composer and performer, and he thought of his music as a living organism rather
than as an absolute commodity. As a consequence, he frequently revised pieces for new contexts, transforming
what was originally a chamber work into a symphonic work—such as the first movement of the First String
Quartet, which became the third movement of the Fourth Symphony. Apparently, however,Page 205 → the First
String Quartet is already a transformation of four organ solos that Ives used in church services. The titles of the
movements—Chorale, Prelude, Offertory, and Postlude—certainly suggest this origin. In other instances, such as
his Second Piano Sonata, the Concord Sonata, Ives invites performance by piano solo throughout, or, at various
points, with stringed instruments and flute. In such a performance, the Concord Sonata would be chamber music.
The point is: To the tally of Ives's chamber works, pieces with variable scoring might be added.

The core of Ives's chamber output includes two string quartets (1909, 1915), four sonatas for violin and piano
(1913-16), and one Piano Trio (1915). In addition, he wrote smaller pieces for various instrumentations including
“Practice for String Quartet in Holding Your Own” and “An Old Song Deranged” (both 1903) for clarinet/English
horn, harp/guitar, violin/viola, viola, and two celli; Scherzo for String Quartet (1904), “From the Steeples and the
Mountains” (1906) for trumpet, trombone, and four sets of bells; Prelude on “Eventide” for baritone/trombone,
two violins, and organ; “Scherzo: All the Way around and back,” for clarinet/flute, bugle/trumpet, bells/horn,
violin, two pianos/piano four hands (both 1908); “Take-Off No. 3” (1909), for clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, and
piano; “Largo risoluto” Nos. 1 and 2 (1909, 1910) for piano quintet; “Scherzo: Over the Pavements” (1910; rev.
1927) for piccolo, clarinet, bassoon/baritone saxophone, trumpet, three trombones, cymbals, bass drum, and piano;
“The Gong on the Hook and Ladder” (1912) for string quartet or quintet with piano; “Halloween” (1914) for piano
quintet with optional percussion; “In Re con moto et al” (1916; rev. 1924) for piano quintet; “Decoration Day”
(1919) for violin and piano; and the Largo (1934) for violin, clarinet, and piano.

The earliest of the sonatas for violin and piano is the so-called Pre-first Sonata, which was begun around 1899 and
subsequently ransacked for various movements of the later four sonatas and the Largo of 1934. The sonatas are all
three-movement pieces, but formal aspects of individual movements are not classical pattern forms, save for the
occasional ternary song-form.19 In all of the sonatas, hymn tunes—as opposed to parlor songs, marches, and so
on—are more prominent than in any of his other works.20 Technically, they are less demanding than most of
Ives's compositions, and in the Fourth Sonata, he wrote the violin part with the intention of having his nephew
Moss White Ives play it.21 The spirituality and accessibility of the sonatas are indicative of Ives's sensitivity to
distinctions among musical genres. These scores represent his most homely and traditional style despite localized
musical audacities. The traditional aspect has more to doPage 206 → with Ives's preservation of the character of
domestic chamber music than with details of particular musical events.

Ives composed his First String Quartet in 1896 during his studies at Yale with Horatio Parker. It quotes hymn
tunes, and probably originated as organ music for services. The first movement is a double fugue based on
“Missionary Hymn” and “Coronation.” The music is conservative yet elegant; Ives later scored it for orchestra and
incorporated it as the third movement of his Fourth Symphony. Those who question Ives's competence in writing
tonal music need to look carefully at the skill with which Ives has woven these two classic, America tunes into a
contrapuntal edifice that is impressive yet deeply touching.

The remaining three movements are more adventurous, but the finale most closely resembles classic Ives: In it, the
march rhythms of the main theme,”Webb” (“Stand up! Stand up for Jesus!”), dominate the score, but quotations in
triple meter from the second movement soon drift into the ongoing music to create intricate polyrhythms in the
work's jubilant conclusion. By the time the piece was performed publicly, Ives had been dead for three years.

Ives was provoked into writing his Second Quartet by attending performances by the Kneisel Quartet. He found
their repertoire traditional to the point of triteness, and their audiences, consisting of polite old ladies and
gentlemen, offended him equally. He began the Second Quartet, as he says, partly in anger, partly in jest, and in
the hopes of hearing something new from a medium that appeared to him threadbare.

Eventually, he got serious about the piece and worked on it from 1907 until 1913. Ultimately, it came to have
three movements: “Discussions,” “Arguments,” and “The Call of the Mountains.” The first is a dense web in
which all four instruments play all the time. The rhythmic profiles of the lines are largely independent, and
harmonies are highly dissonant. The second movement has more diverse textures and includes strange
juxtapositions of bitingly modern passages with others that sound like traditional Romantic quartet literature. This
curious stylistic mixture can only be understood by looking at the score, where Ives penned mocking comments
above these later passages—much in the manner of his “Unanswered Question.” Most of these passages are
assigned to the second violin, which Ives associates with a fictitious violinist named Rollo Finck. The allusion is
probably to Henry Theophilus Finck (1854-1926), who studied at Harvard with John Knowles Paine, visited
Berlin and Vienna, and was the music critic for the New York Evening Post and the Nation from 1881 to 1924. He
wrote monographs on Richard Wagner, Edvard Grieg, Richard Strauss, and Jules Massenet. Apparently, Ives saw
him as one of the reasons why New York City's musical life at the time was rooted in the past.

Page 207 → Page 208 →

In the finale of the quartet, Ives returns to the difficult idiom and dense textures of the first movement. All three
movements contain quotations of familiar tunes. Those in the first and second are secular and patriotic tunes, but
those in the third are hymn tunes. Ives's use of “Nettleton” (“Come, Thou fount of every blessing”) is so veiled as
easily to escape notice, but toward the end of the movement, an ostinato line in the cello is played against a very
clear statement of Lowell Mason's tune “Bethany.” The movement has been called “transcendentalist”;22
however, Ives may have been aiming not so much for sublimity as ironic humor: He indicated on the score that the
piece was “for four men who converse, discuss, argue (politics), fight, shake hands, shut up, then walk up the
mountainside to view the firmament.” Here, Ives may have intended a pun since—at least according to traditional
metaphysical cosmology—these four men on the mountaintop might have been “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

Ives's chamber works, like all of his music, are scrapbooks in which the collage of musical materials reflects the
diversity of his life and culture. Quotation, paraphrase, and parody all play roles in these collages. Quotation
seems generally to pose a neutral view, whereas paraphrase frequently is nostalgic, dreamy, or idealistic, and
parody is humorous, ironic, or mocking. These are not coincidental traits of Ives's music. They are part of the
aesthetic philosophy—influenced especially by Ralph Waldo Emerson—that he formulated early in his career and
maintained for the remainder of his life. Emerson's essay on art articulates this viewpoint clearly:

The artist must employ the symbols in use in his day and nation to convey his enlarged sense to his
fellow-men. Thus the new in art is always formed out of the old. The Genius of the Hour always sets
his ineffaceable seal on the work and gives it an inexpressible charm for the imagination…. No man
can quite emancipate himself from his age and country, or produce a model in which the education,
the religion, the politics, usages and arts of his times shall have no share.23
It was this ideology that enabled Ives to create a distinctively American style of art music from vernacular musical
materials of the time.
Page 209 →

ELEVEN
Nationalism and Tradition: Schoenberg and the Austro-German
Avant-Garde
Histories of music rarely speak of Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) as a nationalist or as a traditionalist; however,
he was definitive in asserting both his status as a German composer and as a continuation of the German musical
heritage. Josef Rufer, who studied composition with Schoenberg and was his assistant at the Prussian Academy of
Arts from 1925 until 1933, quotes an article by Schoenberg that begins with the statement: “Whenever I think
about music, I never visualize…any other than German music.”1 When he formulated the precepts of serialism,
Schoenberg told Rufer: “Today I succeeded in something by which I have assured the dominance of German
music for the next century.”2 On another occasion, when seeking an appointment to teach composition,
Schoenberg described himself as “an educated Brahmsian, Beethovenian, and Mozartian.”3 In his essay of 1931
entitled “National Music,” Schoenberg lists Bach and Mozart as primary influences and Beethoven, Brahms, and
Wagner as secondary models.4

Schoenberg was deeply hurt when the president of the Prussian Academy, Max von Schillings, in accordance with
National Socialist anti-Semitic policies, denounced Jewish faculty members. Schoenberg recoiled in pain,
declaring to Anton Webern in a letter of 4 August 1933 that he had separated himself from whatever connections
he had had with the Occident; however, his protestations were more rhetorical than realistic. Webern sent the
letter to Alban Berg with the observation that “[Schoenberg] has shakenPage 210 → me deeply. Even if I regard
his departure from the Occident humanly as possible (I don't believe it…) there remains for me the unshakeable
fact of his musical works, for which there is only one description: German.”5

Nationalism in Schoenberg's music is demonstrated through his alliance with German musical traditions. At the
precise moment when he ostensibly broke with that tradition, he took pains to demonstrate that on the contrary, he
was maintaining and continuing that tradition; thus, in his first serial work, the Suite, Op. 25 (1923), he replaced
the perfunctory designation Stück (piece), which he had often used to label earlier pieces, with highly indicative
designations: Prelude, Gavotte, Musette, Menuett, and Gigue.

Because he was a composer who valued his musical heritage, Schoenberg attached great significance to chamber
music, as his output demonstrates. His principal chamber scores include an early String Quartet in D (1897); four
additional works for that medium—Op. 7 (1905), Op. 10 (1908), Op. 30 (1927), Op. 37 (1936)—the string sextet
Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 (Transfigured night; 1899); Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21, for flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass
clarinet, violin/viola, cello, piano, and speaking voice reciting surrealist poems by Albert Giraud in German
translation by Otto Erich Hartleben; the Serenade, Op. 24 (1923) for clarinet, bass clarinet, mandolin, guitar,
violin, viola, cello, and bass voice; the Wind Quintet, Op. 26 (1924); the Suite, Op. 29 (1926) for two clarinets,
bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, and piano; Ode to Napoleon, Op. 41 (1945) for string quartet and reciter; the
String Trio, Op. 45 (1946), and the Phantasy, Op. 47 (1949) for violin and piano.6

Verklärte Nacht has established an enduring place in the repertoire, and rightly so. The piece uses Wagnerian
techniques of sequence and leitmotif to construct a tone poem in the manner of Strauss, albeit for chamber
ensemble in this case. Schoenberg indicated on the title page of the manuscript that the piece is based on Richard
Dehmel's poem by the same title; however, the manuscript does not include the text of the poem. Similarly, when
Schoenberg gave the score to Dreililien Verlag for publication, it was without the poem. Max Marschalk, the
director of the firm, had to write to the composer requesting the poem in order to include it with the published
score. In early performances of the piece, programs did not include the poem either.7

The poem is in five stanzas of irregular length. Individual lines have variable numbers of syllables, and rhyme
schemes are erratic. The third and fifth stanzas are the shortest, with four and three lines respectively. The first
stanza amounts to a set design; the second lays bare the crux ofPage 211 → the drama: a woman has become
pregnant out of wedlock; she is uncertain how her present companion will respond; the third stanza is an interlude
leading to the man's response; in the fourth stanza, he magnanimously reassures her that he accepts her and her
child; the brief final stanza lowers the curtain on the happy trio immersed in tranquil ecstasy.8 In notes provided
by the composer for the Hollywood String Quartet's recording of the piece, he related particular musical events to
certain lines of the poem; however, his aim was to capture the ambience of the poetic images rather than to write
onomatopoeic music. Instrumentation is sometimes anthropomorphic—with rather obvious instances equating the
man and woman walking through the woods with the sounds of viola and cello respectively, yet here too
Schoenberg does not maintain this assignment of instruments slavishly.

Arnold Rosé and the Rosé Quartet gave the premiere of Verklärte Nacht on 18 March 1902. They repeated the
work in 1903 on a program that had been rehearsed in the presence of Gustav Mahler. It was in this context that
the two composers met for the first time.9 In a performance of 1912, Dehmel heard Schoenberg's piece for the first
time. He wrote the composer a note of thanks in which he calls the piece “wonderful” and states that he was
“enthralled” by the music. Similarly enthusiastic responses led Schoenberg to arrange the work for string orchestra
in 1917.

The First String Quartet shows the influence of Richard Strauss insofar as Schoenberg adopts his procedure,
familiar from the tone poems Also sprach Zarathustra (1896) and Ein Heldenleben (1898) of combining multiple
movements as a continuum. In the Quartet, the sections are clear from the headings: Nicht zu rasch (not too fast),
Kräftig (powerfully), Mäßig: Langsame Viertel (evenly: slow quarter-note), Mäßig: Heiter (evenly: jovial).
Harmonies are highly chromatic, but imitative counterpoint and highly melodic passages appear throughout the
piece. Schoenberg draws from the Classical tradition as well, particularly in the second section, which uses for its
first motif a figure borrowed from the minuet of Haydn's String Quartet in D major, Op. 20, No. 4, Hob. III/34.
Later, he draws from the “Theme russe” section of the third movement of Beethoven's Quartet in E minor, Op. 59,
No. 2. The allusion is confirmed by the contour of Schoenberg's melody, its countersubject, and the characteristic
imitations of both.

The String Quartet, Op. 10 broke new ground for Schoenberg. In it, he wrote two essentially traditional quartet
movements. The second of these is a scherzo whose trio quotes the familiar tune “Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles
ist hin” (Alas, my dear Augustin, all is lost). This is apparently an allusionPage 212 → to the fact that his first
wife, Mathilde Zemlinsky, had left him for the painter Richard Gerstl.10 Schoenberg adds soprano soloist in the
third and fourth movements, which use two poems, “Litenai” (Litany) and “Entrückung” (Transcendance), from
Stefan George's collection Der siebente Ring (The seventh ring; 1907). The former poem is a prayer for comfort
amid earthly turmoil, the later, a sublimation of human misery that leads Schoenberg to transcend not only his
personal circumstances but the restrictions of tonality as well. Here, he lines out a tone row of the pitches G-sharp,
B, G, F-sharp, A-sharp, D, F, E, D-sharp, C-sharp, A, C. While the movement is not constructed in strict serial
fashion, it nevertheless anticipates aspects of the compositional style that Schoenberg developed in 1923.

The nature of dodecaphony was elucidated in Schoenberg's essay of 1923 entitled simply “Twelve-Tone
Composition.”11 In the first sentence, he states: “In twelve-tone composition consonances (major and minor
triads) and also the simpler dissonances (diminished triads and seventh chords)—in fact almost everything that
used to make up the ebb and flow of harmony—are, as far as possible, avoided.” He explains that this approach in
no way diminishes the significance of harmonies (i.e., simultaneous sonorities) or motives and phrases (i.e.,
successive sonorities), but that the application of these will be different in homophonic and polyphonic music. In
his closing remarks, Schoenberg stresses that comprehensibility of the musical idea is presumed regardless of
whether the sonorities are presented simultaneously or successively. He makes the further interesting observation
that the ease or difficulty of comprehensibility of the original idea will affect both the tempo and the development
of the musical premise.

In transforming these theories into music, Schoenberg worked initially with pieces for piano solo and chamber
ensembles—specifically, the Serenade, Op. 24, the Wind Quintet, Op. 26, and the Suite, Op. 29.12 The Serenade
is an appealing work, largely owing to its fascinating constellation of timbres and interesting rhythmic motifs. In
this and other twelve-tone pieces, Schoenberg generally uses metrical and formal patterns more akin to traditional
repertoire than he had in his free pan-tonal works. Each of the seven movements is highly profiled from a
constructive point of view. Schoenberg's labels—Marsch, Menuett, Variationen, Sonett nr. 217 von Petrarca,
Tanzscene, Lied ohne Worte, and Finale—help to orient the listener to particular aspects of each movement, but
these are often subverted by the intrusion of disparate musical topics.13 In the opening march, for example, the
opening duple meter is almost immediately contradicted by allusionsPage 213 → to the triple meter and melodic
contours of Viennese waltzes. This montage of materials is brought under control by clearly articulated formal
designs, which frequently include literal repeats. In the case of the minuet, Schoenberg follows the Classical
model exactly and provides a contrasting trio that is followed by the repetition of the minuet, then the coda. The
theme of the third movement is clearly labeled, as are each of its five variations and coda. The only strictly serial
movement is the fourth, which is based on the row E, D, E-flat, C-flat, C, D-flat, A-flat, G-flat, A, F, G, B-flat,
which is heard first in segments played by the violin, bass clarinet, cello, and viola. These are clearly identified in
the score by the designation Hauptstimme (main line), an instruction that Schoenberg began using in 1909 in his
Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16. The tone row appears as the vocal line thirteen times, each time with different
rhythmic designs.14 The ensuing dance scene consists of a waltz and an Austrian Länder stated in alternation. The
sixth movement is a tranquil Adagio played pianissimo and with muted strings throughout. The line for the violin,
which is the soloist, moves quickly throughout its register in a free pan-tonal style, yet its effect is intensely
lyrical. The finale recalls the opening march and then cites salient passages from earlier movement, although
special emphasis is given to the Ländler theme.

Schoenberg's Wind Quintet, Op. 26 is his first score to realize the full potential of serialism. The prime form of the
row, which consists of the tones E-flat, G, A, B, C-sharp, C, B-flat, D, E, F-sharp, A-flat, F, is identified as the
main line in the flute part. Within the four movements of the piece, Schoenberg focuses at various times on
particular pitch sets extracted from the row and its transformations. In so doing, he hoped to achieve a formal
effect comparable to the components of traditional tonal forms. This formal partitioning is aided by consistency of
dynamics, tempo, melodic contours, and other parameters as well; thus, the first movement is a sonata form with a
coda, the second, a scherzo and trio with coda, the third, a ternary song form, and the last, a rondo. It is in the
rondo that Schoenberg comes closest to accomplishing his goal of a clearly comprehensible form.

In his initial plans for the Suite, Op. 29, Schoenberg had envisioned a seven-movement work. The finished
product, dedicated to his new wife, Gertrud née Kolisch, consists of four movements—Overture, Dance Steps,
Theme and Variations, and Gigue—that retain some elements of those originally projected. The first, which was
to have been in 6/8 meter, “light, elegant, snazzy, and bluffing,” became the Overture and retained those very
characteristics. Of the Foxtrot, only the duple meter and shiftingPage 214 → tempos remained in the Dance Steps
movement. The next two items of the first plan, a waltz and a slow movement self-portrait of the composer, were
dropped. Friedrich Silcher's setting of “Änchen von Tharau” (long notes in the clarinet) is the theme of the third
movement, which consists of four variations and a coda. The sentiments of the first stanza continue throughout the
remaining five of the complete poem.

Ännchen von Tharau ist's, die mir gefällt,

Sie ist mein Leben, mein Gut und mein Geld.

Ännchen von Tharau hat wieder ihr Herz

Auf mich gerichtet in Lieb' und in Schmerz.

Ännchen von Tharau, mein Reichthum, mein Gut,

Du meine Seele, mein Fleisch und mein Blut!

(Annie from Tharau! May she live in good health!

She is my life, my goodness, my wealth.

 Annie from Tharau devotes her whole heart

To me, both in joy and when pain doth smart.

Annie from Tharau, you make my life whole:

You are my flesh, and my blood, and my soul.)

Schoenberg replaced the last two movements of the original plan with a Gigue in 12/8 meter at a lively tempo and
in a typically Baroque, contrapuntal texture. These features are interrupted from time to time, particularly for
recollections of the Dance Steps movement and an extended reminiscence of the “Änchen” theme.

Schoenberg's Third and Fourth String Quartets (1927, 1936) were both commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague
Coolidge, and both were premiered by the Kolisch Quartet (the former in Vienna, the latter in Los Angeles).15
Both are in four movements and retain close ties with traditional formal designs. They also preserve the typically
serious character of the genre insofar as they contain no compositional games—such as the syllabic distribution of
eleven-syllable lines over the twelve tones of the row in the Petrarch Sonnet of the Serenade, or the incorporation
of an unambiguously tonal melody within the serial fabric of the third movement of the Suite. The two quartets are
nevertheless quite different because the Third makesPage 215 → little use of special string effects, whereas the
Fourth relies on sul ponticello, harmonics, pizzicato, and other distinctive sonorities.

In his String Trio, Schoenberg reacted to his near-fatal heart attack on 2 August 1946. At the time, he had already
accepted a commission from A. Tillman Meritt for a piece to be performed on a chamber-music program with
other new works by Walter Piston and Bohuslav Martin . He had determined before the attack that the piece
would be a continuous movement with three principal subjects separated by two episodes.16 The details of
Schoenberg's brush with death are recounted in his own essay “Mein Todesfall” (My fatality) as well as in
recollections of his friends and colleagues to whom he explained the significance of particular musical events.17
Sudden, loud outbursts are generally associated with the many injections Schoenberg was given; wildly
juxtaposed musical segments recall the composer's unconscious and delirious states; and variously remembered
and abandoned musical languages reflect both his state of mind at the time and his general relationship with his
German musical heritage.18

The creative conceptions behind Schoenberg's Trio greatly impressed one of his literary friends, Thomas Mann,
who was then writing his novel Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn as Narrated
by Friends. Mann was intrigued by the dichotomy between the almost impossible technical demands of
Schoenberg's Trio and the rewards of its fascinating tonal effects. This dialectic was incorporated by Mann into a
chapter on the imaginary composer's chamber music. (In the novel, Leverkühn is syphillitic, a detail that
Schoenberg greatly resented.)

Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon exists in two versions. The first, for reciter, string quartet, and piano, fulfilled the
requirements of the commission that he received from the League of Composers in 1942 for a chamber work. In
fact, the premiere of the piece on 23 November 1944 was hardly a chamber work at all, having been given by
Artur Rodzinsky conducting the string section of the New York Philharmonic with Mack Harrell, speaker, and
Eduard Steuermann, pianist. For this version, “Schoenberg made the necessary additions to the original score.”19
Even in its original instrumentation, the Ode differs sharply from Schoenberg's authentic chamber scores in
several ways. Most conspicuous is the absence of traditional pattern forms within this through-composed piece.
While vocal resources had been used previously in the Second String Quartet, their pervasiveness in the Ode
precludes the kind of interaction among elements of the ensemble that is characteristic of chamber music. This
circumstance arose from two grounds: The first was Schoenberg's intention of making a political statement in
condemnation of Hitler, the second was his selectionPage 216 → of a gargantuan text—nineteen strophes of nine
lines each! The Ode to Napoleon, in its original version, is thus chamber music only insofar as it uses an ensemble
of six players.
ANTON WEBERN
Similar small ensembles with solo voices appear commonly in the works of Schoenberg's pupil Anton Webern.
Among these are Six Songs with four instruments, Op. 14; Five Songs with Five instruments, Op. 15; Five Canons
for soprano, clarinet, and bass clarinet, Op. 16; Three Folk Songs with three instruments, Op. 17, and Three Songs
with E-flat Clarinet and Guitar, Op. 18. In these works, too, the demands of setting texts often inhibit the
characteristic interactions among instruments of chamber ensembles; however, Webern's predilection for canonic
writing helped to minimize this impediment.

Webern composed an impressive number of purely instrumental chamber works, and his first known compositions
(discovered in 1965) are two pieces for cello and piano. Before his official “Opus 1,” the Passacaglia for
orchestra, Webern had completed almost two dozen instrumental chamber scores, mainly for string quartet and
piano quintet.20 His Five Movements, Op. 5 (1909) for string quartet thus represents a very advanced stage of his
compositional development rather than an initial essay in this medium. Each of them is highly contrasted in
affection, duration, and sonority. The third and shortest is not quite a minute; the fifth and longest is slightly over
four minutes. In all five, Webern, who was himself a cellist, makes extensive use of distinctive string sonorites
including pizzicato, sul ponticello, harmonics, con sordino. The third movement, which has the character of a
scherzo, was inspired by Schoenberg's Second String Quartet, Op. 10. Webern had heard the premiere of Op. 10
given by the Rosé Quartet in Vienna on 21 December 1908. In fact, Webern's movement uses thematic materials
taken from the Scherzo of Schoenberg's Quartet. More recent study of Op. 5 indicates that the influence of
Schoenberg's Op. 10 is far more pervasive in Webern's Op. 5, and that the motivic figure that becomes the head
motif of “Ich fühle luft von anderen planeten” was converted by Webern into a structural plan at least for the
fourth of his movements.21

Arnold Rosé first heard Webern's Op. 5 when the composer played the pieces for him on the piano. At the time,
Rosé expressed interest in performing them with his quartet; this they did on 29 June 1912, although the premiere
had taken place in Vienna on 8 February 1910. Schoenberg wasPage 217 → equally enthusiastic about the pieces,
and he wrote to the publisher Fritz Simrock recommending them as well as the Passacaglia, Op. 1, and the Four
Pieces, Op. 7 (1910) for violin and piano. Although they were not accepted for publication, the Five Movements
attracted attention, and they were featured on a program of 8 August 1922 that was sponsored by what became the
International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) three days later on 11 August. The performance was given
by the Amar Quartet, whose members were Licco Amar, Walter Casper, Paul Hindemith, and Maurits Frank.22

Webern rewrote the Five Movements in 1928-29 for string orchestra, and this version of the pieces was given
under Fabien Sevitzky—Serge Koussevitzky's nephew—in Philadelphia on 26 March 1930. In revamping the
pieces, he envisioned an ensemble of about eighty players and often expanded the score at times to fourteen
staves; thus, it was not simply an “arrangement” of the chamber music. Webern submitted this version (along with
Opp. 19-21) on 3 February 1931 in his successful bid for the Music Prize of the City of Vienna. This award gave
Webern considerable notoriety in musical circles in addition to a sizable cash stipend. On 13 April of that year, the
quartet version was the opening number of the first all-Webern concert. According to Webern, a performance of
the stringorchestra version requires about seventeen minutes.23 Even allowing a minute or two extra for
performance by the larger forces, one must conclude that most string quartet performances are excessively fast.

During the years from 1911 to 1913, Webern had considered expanding Op. 5. Eventually rejecting this idea, he
assembled four movements as a string quartet in 1911. In 1913, he composed two additional movements that were
placed as outer movements to the existing four. The set of six became the Bagatelles, Op. 9, for string quartet.
Webern may have felt the need to expand the four-movement string quartet of 1911 on account of the extreme
brevity of the pieces, a feature to which the title (i.e., “trifles”) alludes.24 The Amar Quartet, with Paul Hindemith
on viola, gave the premiere of Op. 9 on 19 July 1924 at the prestigious Donaueschingen Festival. In a lecture that
he gave on 12 February 1932, Webern explained the significance of Op. 9 as follows:

The Bagatelles for string quartet [are] all very short, lasting about two minutes…. Here I had the
feeling that when the twelve notes [of the chromatic scale] had all been played, the piece was over….
In my sketchbook, I wrote out the chromatic scale and crossed off individualPage 218 → notes…. In
 short, a law came into being: Until all twelve notes have appeared none of them may occur again. The
most important thing is that each successive “run” of the twelve notes marked a division with the
piece, idea, or theme.25

Webern's aphoristic manner is still more prominent in the Three Little Pieces, Op. 11 (1914), which were the
indirect result of a request from his father. An enthusiastic music lover, the elder Webern suggested that his son
might try to write a longish piece for cello and piano. Webern began work on it immediately, finished a single
movement of a sonata, but became distracted by the idea of writing several small pieces. The Three Little Pieces
(nine, thirteen, and ten measures respectively) thus came into being. Webern presented them to his father as a
birthday present, apparently indicating that he planned to continue work on the sonata. Within two weeks, World
War I had begun, and so the sonata remains an impressive torso of the projected two-movement work. The first
performance of Op. 11 was given on 2 December 1924 by Maurits Frank, cello, and Eduard Zuckmayer, piano.
The cello sonata was premiered by Gregor Piatigorsky accompanied by Victor Babin on 3 June 1970.

The String Trio, Op. 20 (1927) was originally planned as a three-movement work, but Webern ultimately rejected
the third movement. The two movements were published by Universal Edition in 1927, and the premiere was
given by Rudolf Kolisch, violin, Eugen Lehner, viola, and Benar Heifetz, cello, in Vienna on 16 January 1928. By
the time he began the Trio, Webern had embraced Schoenberg's method of composing with twelve tones;
however, the sequence of movements in many of Webern's works does not always reflect the order of their
composition. In the case of the Trio, the second movement, Sehr getragen und ausdrucksvoll (very lightly and
expressively), was originally intended as the first movement; thus, it has the depth, character, and sonata form
typically associated with first movements of Classical scores. It also contains the primary form of the tone row
that pervades both movements. When Webern changed the design of the piece, he placed what would have been
an internal movement, Sehr langsam (very slowly) in first position; however, by this point, the row
transformations are well advanced.26

The details of row variations were of little concern to most audiences during Webern's time, and most critics
decried the Trio along with its advanced serial techniques. When Licco Amar, Paul Hindemith, and Maurits Frank
played it on 21 May 1928, the response was quite uniformly negative.Page 219 → On 13 September, when
members of the Kolisch Quartet played the piece at the Siena conference of the ISCM, disturbances in the hall
during the second movement forced the performers to begin the movement anew. At its conclusion, the concert
hall became pandemonium.27 Ironically, this austere, difficult work was the first music by Webern to be recorded
on a commercial record label. This release in 1939, which featured the Kathleen Washbourne Trio on Decca
Records, was sent to the composer in October of that year.

Webern's Quartet, Op. 22 (1930) was written and dedicated to the architect Adolf Loos on the occasion of his
sixtieth birthday. The piece was planned in 1928 as a three-movement work, but Webern ultimately produced two
movements. These were originally to have been the third (rondo) and second (slow), but they became second and
first. Other aspects of the score changed during its creation: At first, Webern had envisioned a concerto for violin,
clarinet, horn, piano, and string orchestra, but by mid-1929 he settled on an ensemble of violin, clarinet, tenor
saxophone, and piano. By then, he had softened his position regarding literal repetitions within scores, admitting
that comprehensibility required at least some reiteration. This occurs most conspicuously in the first movement,
which is essentially a binary form with repeats of both segments, all of which are framed by a prelude and
epilogue. Throughout the work, small motivic cells are put forth then inverted, much like opening measures of
Brahms's Symphony No. 4.28 The premiere performance was given in Vienna on 13 April 1931 by Rudolf
Kolisch, violin; Johann Löw, clarinet; Leopold Wlach, saxophone; and Eduard Steuermann, piano.

On 23 November 1937, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge wrote to Webern requesting a wind quintet; however, Rudolf
Kolisch managed to persuade her to ask for a string quartet instead. There was a good reason for this: Webern was
already at work on what became his Op. 28 (1938), a piece that he had conceived and entered into his sketchbook
over a year previously, on 17 November 1936. There, the three movements are given as Langsam (slow), Rondo,
and Fugue. By the time Webern received the commission, he had already completed two movements of the string
quartet and was working on a third. The change in specifications of the commission was most welcome since the
agreement stipulated that the piece should be ready for its first performance in July 1938. The Kolisch Quartet
gave the premiere at the Tenth Berkshire Festival of Chamber Music, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on 22 September
1938. In that performance, the movements were in the order Gemächlich (unhurried), Mäßig (evenly),Page 220 →
Sehr fließend (very flowing); however, Webern—against the advice of Kolisch—changed the ordering of the
printed edition so that these became the second, first, and third movements.

Op. 28 is a highly contrapuntal work whose three movements make extensive use of canon, fugue, and stretto.
Formal details likewise stem from the Classical heritage, and antecedent-consequent pairings, variation procedure,
ternary song form, scherzo and trio, and fugue contribute the designs of the movements.29 The row consists of a
series of three tetrachords each spanning a minor third: D-flat, C, E-flat, D / F-sharp, G, E, F / A, G-sharp, B, B-
flat. The outer two tetrachords are transpositions of the B-flat, A, C, H motif. The central one gives the motif in
retrograde transposition. If the central tetrachord is bisected and combined with the outer tetrachords, the resulting
hexachords are related in that the second is the retrograde inversion of the first. Webern uses the row both as three
tetrachords and two hexachords.

ALBAN BERG
In general, Berg preferred to compose for large ensembles, but his three chamber works, the First String Quartet,
Op. 3 (1910), Four Pieces, Op. 5 (1913) for clarinet and piano, and the Lyric Suite (1926) for string quartet, are
flawlessly written and have become standard repertoire.

The completion of Op. 3 marked the end of Berg's apprenticeship with Schoenberg, but the piece is rife with the
expressive characteristics and sonic effects of Schoenberg's own early works for string ensembles. It was for this
very reason that Berg decided not to dedicate the piece to Schoenberg.30 The Quartet consists of two movements,
the first being a sonata and coda, the second, a rondo with varied reprises interspersed with four episodes. The first
movement commences with a quick descending figure that settles on the tone B. Both the theme and its
accompaniment focus on chromatic expansions to form melodic and harmonic wedges. In its linear expansion, the
first theme moves upward until it reaches a minor third, but the continuation of the main theme, with its
downward expansions from the minor third, to a major third, and then to a fourth, provides a contrasting motif
despite its derivation from the organic process of expansion. The second theme opens with a conspicuous
ascending fifth, followed immediately by the descending version of this same interval. The brief development
section is followed by a recapitulation in which motifs of the opening theme are thoroughly reworked, often in an
intensely lyrical way.

The four pieces of Berg's Op. 5, for clarinet and piano, were modeledPage 221 → on the Six Little Pieces, Op. 19
(1911) for piano by Schoenberg.31 In addition, several contain allusions or quotations from Till Eulenspiegel and
Death and Transfiguration of Richard Strauss.32 Berg apparently chose the four-movement plan in order to follow
the Classical tradition in which the first movement is an Allegro, the second an Adagio, the third a Scherzo and
Trio, and the fourth a Rondo finale.33 The pieces, which are dedicated to Schoenberg, are highly coloristic and
suggest the influence of Debussy. The challenges of the pieces are musical rather than technical—assuming the
ability for flutter-tonguing. They were first performed at a program of the Society for Private Musical
Performances on 17 October 1919.

Berg's magnum opus of chamber music is his Second String Quartet, known as the Lyric Suite. The piece is an
astonishing cross-referencing of musical, personal, and artistic developments in Berg's life, and as one unravels
the strands of allusions, the depth of Berg's melancholy genius becomes increasingly clear.

The sequence of six movements begins with a medial tempo and affection, Allegretto gioviale. The ensuing
movements alternate bipolar intensifications of tempos and affections: Andante amoroso, Allegro misterioso,
Adagio appassionato, Presto delirando, Largo desolato. The number twenty-three, which Berg considered his
fateful number, provides the common denominator for the number of measures in five of the movements.34
Quotations from the Lyric Symphony of Alexander Zemlinsky, Schoenberg's only composition teacher, and from
Wagner's Tristan und Isolde indicated from the outset that the work had extramusical associations. The secret
story behind the piece remained a mystery until 1977, when Berg's heavily annotated gift score to Hanna Fuchs-
Robettin was discovered among the possessions of her daughter, Dorothea Robetin, in Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania,
by George Perle.35 That score contained a previously unknown vocal setting of Stefan George's German
translation of “De profundis” from Baudelaire's Les fleurs du mal; moreover, the motivic cell A, B-flat, F, H (= C)
was recognized as a permutation of the initials in Alban Berg and Hanna Fuchs.

Berg went to great pains to incorporate these cryptograms in his music. The row as it appears in the first
movement consists of F, E, C, A, G, D, A-flat, D-flat, E-flat, G-flat, B-flat, B. In the second movement, the fourth
and tenth tones are exchanged. At the opening of the third movement, the latter form of the row is transposed to
begin on B-flat, thus yielding the tetrachord derived from their initials, B-flat, A, F, B (= C-flat), as the head motif
of the Allegro misterioso—Trio estatico movement.36 The Trio, which reaches the fortissimo dynamic, is played
throughout with mutes. This would appear ironic; however, the annotated score shows that Berg knew that his and
Hanna's mutual passions, intense though they may be, would have to remain suppressed and secret.

Page 222 →

This embedded subject of the row is not its only remarkable feature, since it is an all-interval row; moreover, Berg
designed it to accommodate within the context of strict serial procedure an exact quotation in the middle (meas.
26, 27) of the last movement, Largo desolato, of the Tristan Chord. “Through serial operations, Wagner's motives
(the Tristan Chord set-types [0, 2, 5, 8], the cello melody [0, 1, 2, 6], and the canonic subject [0, 1, 2, 3, 7] saturate
Berg's composition….particularly the last movement.”37 Astonishingly, this masterfully crafted and highly
expressive work was Berg's first strict twelve-tone composition.

Page 223 →

PAUL HINDEMITH
Though he is often cited as the primary exponent of expressionism in music, Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) wrote a
substantial number of scores that are not radically modern. As a string player himself, Hindemith was a violinist in
Adolf Rebner's quartet before World War I, and after his tour of duty, he was the violist in Licco Amar's quartet
from 1921 until 1929. It was during the 1920s that he became increasingly concerned about the widening gap
between composer and audience. He addressed this situation by participating in the Donaueschingen Festival for
contemporary music from its inception in 1921 until 1930 as well as by composing Gebrauchsmusik (utility
music)—pieces directed to the intelligent music lover who may not be a professional musician. His
Gebrauchsmusik includes pieces for children, movies, radio, and sonatas for nearly every instrument.

Hindemith's six sonatas of Op. 11 (1919) include four accompanied sonatas: two, Nos. 1 and 2, for violin and
piano, one, No. 3, for cello and piano, and one, No. 4, for viola and piano; the remaining two, Nos. 5 and 6, are for
solo viola and violin respectively. The sonatas of Op. 25 (1923) again mix solo and accompanied sonatas, those
with piano being Op. 25 No. 2 for viola d'amore, and No. 4 for viola. (The viola d'amore fell out of use at the
close of the Baroque era, but experienced a revival in the early twentieth century when early-music groups became
increasingly interested in original instrumentation.) Subsequent sonatas with one obbligato instrument and piano
include one each for flute (1936), bassoon (1938), oboe (1938), clarinet (1939), trumpet (1939), English horn
(1941), trombone (1941), cello (1942), double bass (1949), and bass tuba (1955), and two each for violin (E, 1935;
C, 1939) and horn (F, 1939; alto horn, E-flat, 1943), which can also be played on alto saxophone.

In addition to these, Hindemith wrote seven string quartets (1915, 1918, 1920, 1921, 1923, 1943, 1945); two
string trios (1924, 1933); a Trio (1928) for viola, heckelphone/saxophone, and piano; a wind quintet (1923); a
Quintet (1923; rev. 1954) for clarinet and strings; a Quartet (1938) for clarinet, violin, piano, and cello; a Septet
(1948) for flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, horn, bass clarinet, and bassoon; a Sonata (1952) for four horns; and an
Octet (1958) for clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, two violas, cello, and double bass.
Page 224 →

TWELVE
The Continuation of Tonality in the Twentieth Century
Many composers at the close of the nineteenth century were attempting to find new ways to use sonorities
inherited from the tonal tradition. Some devised ingenious new applications of sounds that, though familiar, are
contextualized in ways that depart from functional harmonic paradigms. These composers might be considered
conservative, at least superficially; nevertheless, their objectives were no less inventive than those of Schoenberg
and his followers although their means were more readily acceptable to the typical musician and devotee of the
time. Many—but not all—composers who took this moderate approach were trained in conservatories. The
conservatory system evolved primarily during the Romantic era, with the Paris Conservatory leading the way in
1795. Other cultural centers followed and set up schools of music. With few exceptions (such as the
conservatories at Dessau and the Berlin Meisterschule, established in 1829 and 1833 respectively), conservatory
instruction was intended to train capable performers. “Composition” in those contexts consisted mainly of
instruction in music theory and basso continuo. Schools of this sort sprang up in Prague (1811), Breslau (1815),
Vienna (1817), Berlin (1822), Geneva (1835), Leipzig (1843), St. Petersburg (1862), and Moscow (1866). In the
United States, Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory opened in 1857. Oberlin College Conservatory (1865), the
Cincinnati Conservatory (1867), and the New England Conservatory (1867), the largest of the three, were
intended primarily for training teachers.

A concurrent development that fostered conservative attitudes was the rise of historical musicology as a discipline.
Repertoires were increasinglyPage 225 → treated as museum pieces, and historical musical styles became models
that young composers were encouraged to imitate. Nations boasting rich musical traditions—especially Germany,
Austria, France, and Italy—became destinations for many musicians making pilgrimages from culturally remote
areas, and the composers considered paragons of those traditions led to epigones among the aspiring populations.

The impact of conservatory training and historical musicology can be discerned in the works of so many
composers that it would be impossible to survey them all; nevertheless, in some exceptional cases aspiring
composers progressed beyond imitation in order to make distinctive contributions to the chamber music repertoire.
Among these are the Scandinavians Carl Nielsen (1865-1931) and Jean Sibelius (1865-1957); the British Ralph
Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) and Benjamin Britten (1913-1976); and the Americans George Whitefield
Chadwick (1845-1931), Amy Beach (1867-1944), Arthur Foote (1853-1937), Walter Piston (1874-1976), Vincent
Persichetti (1915-1987), Aaron Copland (1900-1990), and Ronald Caltabiano (b. 1959).

SCANDINAVIANS: CARL NIELSEN AND JEAN SIBELIUS

In his youth, Nielsen played piano, violin, bugle, cornet, and trombone. He often performed with his father at
weddings, civic ceremonies, and occasions that prompted the creation of ad hoc bands. Nielsen attributed his
contrapuntal skills to his habit of improvising countersubjects to popular tunes at such events. That he was an
intensely poetic individual is clear from his autobiographical account of his childhood.1 In it, he relates musical
experiences that inspired him: listening to dance music, folk songs, overtures, the symphonies of Haydn and
Mozart, Beethoven, the Well Tempered Clavier of Bach, and the string quartets of Ignaz Pleyel and George
Onslow.2 The account ends with the composer's departure on 1 January 1884 to study at the Copenhagen
Conservatory with Niels Gade.

Gade (1817-1890) was an internationally known figure, largely owing to the advocacy of Robert Schumann and
Felix Mendelssohn. Gade's First Symphony (1842) was premiered by Mendelssohn and the Leipzig Gewandhaus
Orchestra. Gade became Kapellmeister of the Gewandhaus upon Mendelssohn's death in 1847. He returned to
Denmark the next year and became a prominent figure in musical circles. In 1866, he was among the founders of
the Copenhagen Conservatory and served for a time as its director. A prolific composer of chamber music, Gade
wrote three sonatas for violin and piano, two quartets, two quintets, one sextet, and one octet,Page 226 → all for
strings, as well as elegant and substantial Fantasy Pieces for clarinet and piano.

When Nielsen applied for admission to Gade's composition studio, he did so—successfully—with the Andante of
his String Quartet in D minor. In 1915, Nielsen became a professor at the Conservatory, and in 1930, he was
named honorary director. He embraced both Gade's conservative approach to composition and his fondness for
chamber music. Fittingly, it was with a chamber work that Nielsen first achieved international fame.3 In the
course of his career, Nielsen wrote three sonatas for violin and piano, Fantasistykker (fantasy pieces; one in G
minor ca. 1881 for clarinet and piano, two in Op. 2 of 1889 for oboe and piano), a piano trio, six string
quartets—the first two of which he chose not to publish, a string quintet, the lament Ved en ung kunstners Baare
(At the bier of a young artist; 1910) for string quartet and bass, the Canto serioso (Serious song; 1913) for horn
and piano, the “Serenata in vano” (Futile serenade; 1914), for clarinet, bassoon, horn, cello, and bass (1914), and
his most popular chamber piece, the Wind Quintet, Op. 43 (1922).4

Nielsen's G-minor Sonata of 1882 for violin and piano as well as the D-minor String Quartet and the Piano Trio in
G major (both 1883) were written for use by himself and his friends. He never sought to publish them. Even after
studies at the Conservatory, he withheld his scores from publication; thus, the four-movement String Quintet in G
(1888; 2.2.1), despite its clarity of form, idiomatic writing, expressive melodies and harmonies (especially in the
second movement Adagio), and its energetic rhythms (Allegretto scherzando and finale) was unavailable until six
years after his death. Nielsen played the second violin at the premiere of the Quintet on 28 April 1889, but we
have no account of his reaction to it.

In the case of the string quartets, Nielsen clearly fussed about details prior to publication. His first published
quartet was Op. 5 in F minor, which he wrote in 1890, but he had already written the String Quartet in G minor,
Op. 13, in 1888. That score remained unpublished until Nielsen revised it in 1898. A similar process took place
with the String Quartet in E-flat, Op. 14, which originated in 1898 but was revised in 1900. His Fourth Quartet in
F, Op. 44, first appeared in 1906 with the title Piacevolezza (Pleasantry), but it did not acquire its generic title and
higher opus number until its revision in 1919. All six quartets, at least in their original versions, are early works
completed by 1906. They tend, consequently, to be more conservative than later works.

In his quartets, Nielsen uses traditional forms and movement layouts:

Page 227 →

All have four movements with outer movements in sonata-allegro or sonata-rondo from; second movements are
ternary song-forms; and third movements use scherzo-and-trio design.5 Some passages, such as the opening of the
second movement (Andante sostenuto) of the String Quartet in E-flat, Op. 14, reveal fluid harmonic designs. This
passage bears striking similarities to the opening of the Quartet in C, K. 465, of Mozart, a composer whose works
Nielsen prized above all others. Schubertian fluctuation between parallel major and minor is common, as are third-
related keys (often enharmonically spelled). Chromaticism for Nielsen was not so much a localized phenomenon
as a process of continuous movement among keys. He is concerned with overall unity, and to this end, he
regularly employs cyclic recollection of themes, such as the “Résumé” of themes in the recapitulation of the finale
of Op. 13. Combination of themes also occurs, but not in the traditional, Schumannesque way. When Nielsen
combines themes—as, for example, in the coda to the finale of Op. 5—he draws the most distinctive motifs from
his themes and synthesizes them within a new context.

The reconstruction of thematic and harmonic events occurs in Nielsen's sonatas for violin and piano as well. In the
First Sonata, again in the coda, music segments previously heard are reordered so as to impart new significance to
them, both affectively and structurally. “There is hardly a new bar here in terms of pitch or rhythmic motifs; but
virtually every connection is new.”6 The organic relationships among musical gestures provided Nielsen with a
means to unify his works without reliance upon a conventional tonal center. This is apparent in the fact that his
Sonata, Op. 35 (1912) for violin and piano bears no designation of key whatsoever. The main theme of the second
movement finale appears quite conventional at first, but at subsequent hearings, its metrical shapes are altered as
are the tonal regions in which it is stated. When the movement ends this process of drifting tonality and changing
metrical shape, it does so without the invocation of a traditional tonic key. “Though Nielsen's music is generally in
a recognizable key,…his use of these keys is unlike common-practice tonality. Even though Nielsen incorporates
some standard functional progressions,…his scope of chromatic inflexions within reach of any given tonic is just
as wide as Schoenberg's…. The continual tonal flux complements the other continually evolving aspects of his
music.”7

Nielsen's occasional works, Ved en ung kunstners baare, the Canto serioso, and the “Serenata in vano” are
substantial pieces worthy of performance. The first was written for the funeral of Oluf Hartmann, a painter and
acquaintancePage 228 → of Nielsen's via the Neergaard family, whom Nielsen visited at their country home with
regularity. The texture of this lament is generally homophonic and without rhythmic complexities, but the
harmonic successions are often surprising and always intensely expressive. The score was heard again in 1931 at
Nielsen's own funeral. The Canto serioso was a test piece written by Nielsen in his capacity as conductor of the
Copenhagen Royal Court Orchestra from 1908 to 1914. He was particularly interested in hearing how applicants
might manage “arpeggios, difficult intervals, the tone in the bottom register, musical understanding, etc.”8 Nielsen
made the transcription of the Canto for cello and piano that was published by Skandinavisk Musikforlag in 1944.
The “Serenata” was composed for a tour of musicians from the Copenhagen Royal Court Orchestra in 1914 as a
companion piece to Beethoven's Septet, Op. 20. Its simple program outlines successive romantic overtures by
musicians beneath the balcony of a young woman. The musicians strike up an exit march, undaunted by their
serenade's failure to elicit any response whatsoever from the young lady.

Nielsen's most frequently performed chamber score is his three-movement Wind Quintet, Op. 43. According to
popular Nielsen legend, the composer phoned the pianist Christian Christiansen one evening in the fall of 1921,
heard music by Mozart in the background, and went straightaway to Christiansen's home to hear this rehearsal.
The instrumentalists there, in addition to Christiansen, were Paul Hagemann, flute, Svend Christian Felumb, oboe,
Aage Oxenvad, clarinet, Hans Sørensen, horn, and Knud Lassen, bassoon, all members of the Copenhagen Wind
Quintet. One detail, however, raises doubts about what they were performing: Mozart never wrote a wind quintet
or a sinfonia concertante with winds including flute. The best scoring match among Mozart's works is his Quintet,
K. 452 for piano, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon.

Nielsen played winds himself, so he knew well what to do with those instruments. In the Quintet, he demonstrated
not only the technical capacities of the instruments, but also something of the personalities of each of the players.
The first movement is a sonata form; the second a minuet and trio in which melody does not always correspond to
the anticipated triple meter; and the third, which is prefaced by a prelude in which the oboist plays cor anglais, is
a set of eleven variations including solo variations for bassoon and horn, and concluding with an Andantino
festivo. Nielsen chose the theme for his variations from his collection of [49] Hymns and Sacred Songs (1914) for
solo voice. The tune used in the Quintet is “Min Jesus, lad mit Hjerte få” (My Jesus, make me love you with all
my heart). The last movement was performed at the composer's funeral in 1931.

Page 229 →

Jean Sibelius
Sibelius was a violinist and he played in a domestic trio with his brother, Christian, on cello, and his sister, Linda,
at the piano. He also played in a string quartet in Hämeenlinna, the town to which he moved with his mother
(pregnant at the time with Christian) and sister following the premature death of his father in 1868. It was for such
homely ensembles that Sibelius wrote his earliest works, largely pieces for string quartet, string duos and trios,
and movements for violin and/or cello and piano.

Sibelius moved to Helsinki in the fall of 1885 to study law at the university, but he soon gave this up in preference
for studies at the Helsinki Music Institute, which Martin Wegelius (1846-1906) founded in 1882. Having been
trained at the conservatories in Vienna, Leipzig, and Munich, Wegelius was well versed in Austro-German music
and pedagogy. Sibelius was his star pupil and taught at the Helsinki Music Institute from 1892 until 1900; in 1939,
it was renamed the Sibelius Academy in anticipation of his seventy-fifth birthday.
Sibelius wrote his first substantial chamber score, the Quartet in A minor (1889), in the spring semester of his
senior year at Wegelius's Institute.9 Ferruccio Busoni, professor of piano at the institute, sight-read the piece in the
composer's presence—a feat that impressed Sibelius as much as the Quartet impressed Busoni. In May 1889, the
music critic Karl Flodin commended the piece following its performance there by the Institute's quartet. The
double scherzo and trio form of the third movement, whose two episodes are in B-flat and F minor respectively,
seems to have been modeled after Beethoven, whereas the Dorian mode motifs in the first movement may have
been inspired by the music of Grieg.

The success of this piece along with the recommendation of Wegelius won Sibelius a grant for a year of study in
Germany. His composition lessons there with Albert Becker were frustrating, as Sibelius found him pedantic. One
of the larger works that Sibelius composed in Germany was his five-movement Piano Quintet in G minor (1890),
but Wegelius was not enthusiastic about the piece. Upon returning to Helsinki in late summer, Sibelius composed
the Quartet in B-flat, Op. 4 (1890). From October of 1890 until June 1891, Sibelius studied privately and at the
conservatory in Vienna with Karl Goldmark and Robert Fuchs.

In many ways, these trips to Berlin and Vienna were turning points for Sibelius. His experiences with orchestral
music in Helsinki had been limited. Although Robert Kajanus founded the Helsinki Orchestral Association in
1882 (renamed the Philharmonic Society in 1895), the ensemblePage 230 → had fewer than fifty players during
that entire period; thus, the contemporary orchestral scores of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) and Richard Strauss
(1864-1949) were inaccessible to the young Sibelius, except in score. Once he heard this music, he turned away
from chamber music almost entirely. Among the late works are only two substantial chamber pieces: the three-
movement Sonatina in E major, Op. 80 (1915) for violin and piano, and the five-movement String Quartet in D
minor, Op. 56 (1909).

The D-minor Quartet is most often known by its nickname, Voces intimæ(inner voices). In a score for a friend,
Sibelius penciled these words over the three ppp chords that appear in measure 21 of the third movement, Adagio.
At the time he composed this quartet, Sibelius had severe throat problems, which he presumed were symptoms of
cancer. He actually did have a tumor, but it was benign and was successfully removed; nonetheless, Voces intimæ
is marked throughout by either somber resignation or fierce energy. In its form, too, the piece is ambivalent,
sometimes invoking pattern forms but almost invariably pushing them beyond the breaking point. The dialectics
within the score's expressive content and constructive features result in a powerfully disconcerting work. Had
Sibelius composed only this piece, his status as a great composer would remain without question.

The first movement, in D minor, opens with an Andante dialogue between first violin and cello, but the passage is
more than “introductory” since the opening themes grow out of its rhythms and contours. Sonata principle
underpins the structure of the movement, but movement from one tonal plane to another is the result of voice
leading rather than conventional modulation. The secondary key/theme area (1 in the exposition, 6 in the
recapitulation) is so riddled with chromatic alterations and sudden harmonic shifts that it has little of the stability
typical of the subsidiary domain. The development is appropriately brief—because the piece has already included
tremendous harmonic movement, as it will in the recapitulation; hence the typical role of the development is no
longer applicable. The recapitulation arrives as the key of D minor before the actual restatement of the opening
theme (4-3). The secondary theme is transposed to D, as might be expected, but Sibelius takes it on a detour
ending on A; thus, the second movement, a Vivace in A major, seems to be a continuation of the first rather than a
fresh start. This impression is enforced by the quotation of a passage from the recapitulation of the first movement
shortly before the end of the second. Note too that the final cadences in both movements consist of half-step
motion from G-sharp to an unharmonized A.

Page 231 →

Given the principal tonality of D minor, neither of these movements provides harmonic closure; thus, the third
movement, Adagio, is an inevitable continuation of the previous movement(s). Sibelius has enticed his listeners
down this path for a good reason. This movement opens in D minor, thus offering the potential of being the
harmonic goal of what has passed; however, Sibelius straightaway begins to undermine D minor, and by measure
3, the implied tonic is F major. Soon, the mode changes to F minor. An extended argument ensues, in which E
minor (i.e., the key of the voces intimæchords) vies with the two forms of F—major and minor—for hegemony.
This harmonic instability is paralleled in the rhythmic instability of the lines, which are almost all syncopated;
however, the beat is so consistently obscured, that without the score in hand, it is difficult to perceive any
syncopations as such. At points where Sibelius intends to establish a tonic, he does so by introducing imitations of
a motif derived from the opening violin melody. At its first appearance, it contains seven notes (four rising + three
falling), but in subsequent imitative passages, it is altered. As the movement draws toward its close, F seems to be
the harmonic goal, but the harmonic progress of the movement is diverted in a coda in which the motif previously
used for imitation becomes the principal melodic strand with a new, homophonic accompaniment. The motif is
tortured by invading keys, is interrupted by the voces intimæchords, now in C-sharp minor, but is ultimately
transformed into an ascending, diatonic scale mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do.

The arrival at F major offers expressive repose following the harmonic tensions contained within the third
movement; nevertheless, it does not satisfactorily conclude the motion from D to A of the previous movements;
thus, another movement becomes necessary: the fourth, Allegretto (ma pesante). This triple-meter movement
consists of five sections arranged in the manner of a rondo. The A section is a rustic, almost Haydnesque minuet
that falls into head and tail motifs. The first violin dominates the other three instruments in the head motif, but it is
the more evenly distributed material of the tail motif that becomes the primary concern in the restatements of A.
The contrasting music of B is a gigue in homophonic texture that appears first in G minor, later in B minor.
Although the movement provides a harmonically satisfactory ending in D, its formal clarity and metrical
regularity ally it so strongly to penultimate movements in Classical string quartets that a more weighty finale is
virtually expected.

The fifth and final movement, an Allegro in D minor, is formidable indeed! The writing for the first violin is
reminiscent of the quatuor brillant, but the brilliance is required of the other three players too. In its short,Page
232 → rapidly reiterated motifs and suddenly shifting harmonies, the piece anticipates the music of Bartók. This
movement is a torrent of energy that culminates in unison cascades of D-minor scales. Its duple-meter pulse is
constant throughout, but in the closing sixteen measures, Sibelius shifts to triplet division of the beat for a thrice
reiterated cadential progression that becomes a perfect authentic cadence only in its final statement.

Ironically, the Andante festivo (1922) for string quartet, which was commissioned to celebrate the twenty-fifth
anniversary of the opening of a factory in Säynätsalo, is better known than Voces intimæ.Sibelius is partially
responsible for this cruel twist of fate since he subsequently arranged the piece for string orchestra. At the request
of Olin Downes, the New York Times critic charged with supervision of the musical festivities of the 1939 World's
Fair in New York, Sibelius conducted this version of the piece on New Year's Day of 1939 in studio performance
that was broadcast worldwide as part of Finland's participation in the exposition. It is also performed at the
opening of the annual Sibelius Festival in Loviisa, Finland, and has become associated with the composer in much
the same way as his hymn “Finlandia,” which is quite similar in style.

BRITISH: RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS AND BENJAMIN BRITTEN

Coming from a well-to-do family as he did, Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was exposed to high culture from his
childhood. Traditional instruction in strings and keyboard was complemented by study of John Stainer's Theory of
Harmony, which was published in 1872, the year of Vaughan Williams's birth. His formal training was at the
Royal College of Music, London, where his composition teacher as Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. From 1892
until 1895, he pursued a double major in history and music at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied
composition with Charles Wood. Vaughan Williams was well informed regarding his British musical heritage, and
his study of English Renaissance polyphony revealed to him sonorities and textures, especially streams for first-
inversion triads called faburden, which he later used in his own works. After completion of his degrees, he
returned to the Royal College of Music to study composition with Charles Villiers Stanford. Two Continental
sojourns, the first in 1897 to study with Max Bruch, the second in 1908 to work with Maurice Ravel, rounded out
his training. During these formative years, he wrote his first chamber pieces: a string quartet (1897), a quintet
(1898) for clarinet, horn, and piano trio, and a piano quintet (1903) scored, like Schubert's,Page 233 → with
double bass, and the Ballad and Scherzo (1904) for string quintet (2.2.1). These were never published, nor did
Vaughan Williams count them among his works.

The principal chamber works from his maturity include the String Quartet in G minor (1908, rev. 1921), the
Phantasy Quintet (2.2.1; 1912), Six Studies in English Folksong (1926) for cello (or violin, viola, clarinet) and
piano, Household Music (1941), String Quartet No. 2 in A minor (1942), and the Sonata in A minor (1954) for
violin and piano.

Vaughan Williams wrote the G-minor Quartet shortly after returning from his three months of study with Ravel. It
had its premiere in London in November 1909, but Vaughan Williams revised it in 1921 for impending
performances by André Mangeot and his associates. Themes of the four-movement Quartet frequently suggest
prose rhythms, reveal modal influences, are treated in imitation, and are subject to thematic transformation. All of
these features are already apparent in the opening theme of the first movement, its transformation into the second
theme, and in the appropriation of the ascending fourth with which it begins in each of the subsequent movements'
themes. Formal designs are conservative, especially in the lovely Minuet and Trio. The playful use of pizzicato in
the Trio section is one of many string effects that Vaughan Williams uses effectively throughout the piece. The
Romance, in a variable 5/4 meter, is the most freely structured and subdued movement. It contrasts with the
energetic finale whose pizzicato sonorities relate it to the second movement as does its use of classical form, in
this case, a rondo. In the final episode, the opening theme of the first movement returns in imitative counterpoint.
Having established the texture, Vaughan Williams proceeds in the final refrain to treat the rondo theme in a series
of imitations leading to a powerful stretto that concludes the work. In this and other chamber works, Vaughan
Williams uses the designation “solo” to show where one instrument assumes the primary melodic role and others
accompany. A sign follows such passages to indicate where the solo function ceases.

The philanthropy of the wealthy entrepreneur Walter Wilson Cobbett played a crucial role in the genesis of
Vaughan Williams's Phantasy Quintet. Himself an amateur violinist and collector of fine violins, Cobbett, in 1905,
instituted the Cobbett Competitions and Commissions for chamber music.10 The requirement for the first Cobbett
Competition was the composition of a “phantasy” scored for string quartet. Submitted pieces were to resemble
seventeenth-century British fancys—or phantasies, in Cobbett's preferred spelling—insofar as they would be (1)
one continuous movement, (2) of moderate length, and (3) comprised of different sections ofPage 234 →
contrasting character. These broad guidelines afforded composers great latitude. The 1905 competition yielded
seventy-six manuscripts, but in the years that followed, phantasy quartets and quintets enjoyed a resurgence in
popularity.11 Vaughan Williams wrote the Phantasy Quartet at Cobbett's request. It is dedicated to him and the
players of the London String Quartet, who, assisted by violist James Lockyer, played the premiere in Aeolian
Hall, London, on 23 March 1914. For that program, the composer supplied a note about the piece:

It is in four very short movements, which succeed each other without a break. There is one principal
theme (given out by the viola at the start) which runs through every movement—

Prelude (in slow 3/2 time)

Scherzo (this is a quick movement—the longest of the four).

“Alla sarabanda.” (Here the cello is silent and the other instruments are muted.)

Burlesca. (This movement is, for the most part, in the form of a “basso ostinato.”)

The main theme is largely a pentatonic scale on F, but Vaughan Williams freely embellishes the structural tones
with ornamental tones beyond the theoretical scope of the pentatonic scale.

The String Quartet No. 2 in A minor bears the subtitle “For Jean on her Birthday.” The woman named here is Jean
Stewart, the violist of the Menges String Quartet.12 It is for this reason that the principal themes of each
movement are stated first by the viola. For her birthday in February 1943, Vaughan Williams sent via Ursula
Wood (who became Mrs. Ursula Vaughan Williams on 7 February 1953), the first two movements of the Quartet
with a note indicating that “the scherzo refuses to materialize.”13 The first movement is a sonata form with a
greatly abbreviated recapitulation. The second movement, “Romance,” is a fantasy in G minor in which passages
in imitative counterpoint are punctuated with episodes in homophonic texture; however, the episodes use cross-
relations that recall voice leading of Elizabethan repertoire. When the Scherzo and Epilogue did materialize, both
drew upon earlier works. For the Scherzo, Vaughan Williams used a theme from a film score for The 49th
Parallel. The subject of the Epilogue was taken from music for a film entitled “Joan of Arc” that never came to
fruition. The Epilogue is much like the Romance in its use of neo-Renaissance imitative counterpoint, but the
tonal plot of the movementPage 235 → is unorthodox, beginning in F major and moving midway through to D
major. The composer included a little pun in the subtitle of the Epilogue: “Greetings from Joan to Jean.”

Another instance of Vaughan Williams's resurrecting older scores occurs in the Sonata in A minor for violin and
piano, which was composed for the violinist Frederick Grinke. Ginke joined with pianist Michael Mulliner on 12
October 1954 to give the first performance of the piece on a BBC broadcast in honor of the composer's eighty-
second birthday. The three movements of the Sonata are a contrapuntal Fantasia, an energetic Scherzo, and the
finale, a set of six variations on a theme lifted from his piano quintet of 1903. The contrapuntal ingenuity of the
finale is impressive, with the first variation using the theme in inversion, the second treating it in canon, the fourth
again in inversion, and the fifth using both canon and inversion. The movement concludes with a recollection of
the opening motif of the first movement.

Both the Six Studies in English Folksong and the Household Music are modest yet touching and effective works.
The former were written for May Muhlke, who gave the premiere with Anne Muhlke at the piano on 4 June 1926
at an English Folk Dance Society Festival in Scala Theatre, London. The first five pieces are lyrical and
expressive, and the last energetic. None presents technical difficulties for either player; thus, they are useful pieces
for beginning chamber players. This is equally true of the Household Music, which Vaughan Williams wrote as
his contribution to the war effort. In a lecture of 1940 entitled “The Composer in Wartime,” he asserted that it was
the artist's obligation to “use his skill, his knowledge, his sense of beauty in the service of his fellow men.”14
Heeding his own advice, he composed three settings of Welsh hymn tunes for string quartet with horn ad libitum,
or for any other instrumentation at hand. The first movement is a fantasia on “Crug-y-bar,” the second a scherzo
on “St. Denio,” and the last a set of eight variations on “Aberystwyth.” The Blech Quartet premiered the set on 4
October 1941 in Wigmore Hall, London.

In his youth, Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) enjoyed musical advantages similar to those described in the case of
Vaughan Williams. He began the study of composition with Frank Bridge (1879-1941) at the age of eight;
consequently, he composed prolifically while still a boy. He entered the Royal College of Music, London, in 1930,
studied composition with John Ireland (1879-1962), and by nineteen, had already written significant chamber
works, such as the Movement (1930) for wind sextet and the two phantasies of 1932.15

Page 236 →

Britten scored his Sextet for standard wind quintet with bass clarinet (i.e., the same instrumentation used by
Janácek in Mládí).It is a substantial, interesting, and attractive work that should be heard more frequently.16

The phantasies—a String Quintet in F minor (2.2.1), and a Quartet for oboe and strings—were both inspired by
the Cobbett Competition. Cobbett himself was present on 22 July 1932 when the prize-winning Quintet had its
premiere at the Royal College. The Quartet won no prize, but Britten designated it as Op. 2, and it brought him
international attention. Following its premiere on 21 November 1933 at St. John's Institute, Westminster, by Leon
Goosens (oboe), André Mangeot (violin), Eric Bray (viola), and Jack Shinebourne (cello), it was featured on 5
April 1934 at the ISCM Festival in Florence. At their 1936 conference in Barcelona, the ISCM hosted the
premiere of Britten's Suite, Op. 6 (1935) for violin and piano.

The two phantasies are vastly different pieces. The Quintet might be described as polythematic since each of its
sections focuses on a different motif drawn from the somber cello melody that opens the piece (Andante). This
material serves as both a transition from the Allegro scherzando and a link to the Andante lento. Finally, it appears
as a varied reprise of the opening. One wonders whether Britten may have composed the motive-based sections
first and then drawn from them the material for the opening theme. In the Quartet, which is a monothematic
phantasy, Britten derives almost everything from a reiterated tone and its expansion to a third. One particular
strength of the Quartet is the way in which Britten summarizes its various motifs, bringing them to a climax and
resolving their accumulated tension in the final section.

The Temporal Variations (1936) for oboe and piano were an experiment in educing a wide variety of moods from
severely restricted musical materials. The contrasting movements, designated respectively as Oration, March,
Exercises, Commination, Chorale, Waltz, Polka, and Resolution, contain some intriguing moments, but Britten
ultimately decided to withhold the score.

Britten's music for string quartet includes the early Rhapsody (1929), Quartettino (1930), String Quartet in D
(1931), Alla marcia (1933), and Three Divertimenti (1936); his mature works are the String Quartet No. 1 in D
(1941), No. 2 in C (1945), and No. 3 in E (1975). The youthful works reflect Britten's study of the music of
Schoenberg and Berg, composers whom Bridge admired. Other influences can be heard, too, as in the third and
final movement of the Quartet in D of 1931, for example, which shows his fascination with the music of Bartók.
Britten rejected the Alla Marcia;Page 237 → however, he appropriated portions of it, expanded them, and
rescored them for string orchestra to accompany the song “Parade” in his song cycle Les illuminations (1939). The
Three Divertimenti (March, Waltz, and Burlesque; 1936) are movements salvaged from a five-movement suite of
1933 that materialized only in part. Each of them explores string effects in a masterful way, but the tremendously
energetic Burlesque uses these techniques within a movement reminiscent of Bartók.

Quartet No. 1 in D (1941) was written for Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. Britten had a ready contact with her
through his teacher Frank Bridge and his wife, Ethel, who were personal friends of Mrs. Coolidge. Frank played
viola, and Ethel, violin. They were enthusiastic about chamber music, and Mrs. Coolidge responded with equal
enthusiasm.17 When Britten left England in 1939 because of World War II, he came to the United States equipped
with a letter of introduction from Bridge. In 1941, Mrs. Coolidge commissioned Britten to write a string quartet,
the score was completed during June and July of that year. The premiere by the Coolidge String Quartet took
place on 21 September in Los Angeles.18 They played the piece again at the Library of Congress Founder's Day
Program on 30 October 1941. During the ceremony, Mrs. Coolidge awarded Britten the Coolidge Medal for
outstanding achievement in the field of chamber music.

The First String Quartet is exquisitely beautiful and filled with appealing sonorities, but it is also suffused by a
tension that is perceptible from the outset. The key signature and broad outlines of first movement's intervallic
content—both harmonic and melodic—suggest orthodoxy, as does the work's traditional four-movement layout
including sonata, scherzo (F major), lyric Andante (B-flat major), and sonata-rondo finale (D major). Closer
scrutiny shows conflicting strands, such as the largely E-Phrygian melody of the second violin within the
prevailing D-major harmony, or the cello's persistent C-natural in the second theme (Allegro vivo). The piece
presents formal curiosities as well: The opening theme is relaxed, and the second is animated; thus, the classic
sonata allegro design is reversed. Unusual, too, is the fact the two sections are juxtaposed without a transition
section, and the second theme's unsettling C-natural links it to the development's harmonic processes. During the
development, a transformation of the opening theme returns in F. The ensuing reprise of the Allegro wends its
way back to D major in measure 119, but the Lydian motifs (now on D) undermine the sense of recapitulation,
while the conflicting E of the opening is worked into a triplet figure using the tones F-sharp, D, and E in rotation
over the course of almost two dozen measures. The restatement ofPage 238 → the music from the opening and
secondary tempos is greatly compressed, but it retains the alien C-natural and subverts the dissipation of tension
characteristic of classical sonata forms.

The Scherzo is an asymmetrical arch form in which roughly the first third increases in intensity—specifically
dynamics, rhythmic activity, and register—while the remainder of the piece reduces these tensions one layer at a
time in the stated order. The materials for the third movement are drawn from the first, but as with that movement,
harmonic security is elusive. The contradiction of B-flat major by C major begins in the third measure. Midway
through the movement, C-major triads flung across all parts act as a gateway to the central portion, but there too,
conflicting tonalities arise: D and F. These conflicts persist in the final section of the movement and are resolved
in favor of B-flat major only in the final measures; however, that sonority is sounded as though a
phantom—pianississimo, in second inversion, and with the first violin on B-flat2.

Lydian inflections, emphasis on thirds, and tonal conflicts among B-flat, F, and D unify the finale with the
previous three movements. Even in the bold, closing flourish, the scalar rush upward from E moves through F-
sharp and G-sharp in approaching a unison D, which is followed by a full D-major triad.

The String Quartet No. 2 in C (1945) was written for the 250th anniversary of the death of Henry Purcell, a
composer whose works Britten admired, performed, and, to some extent, imitated. The premiere was given in
Wigmore Hall, London, on 21 November 1945 by the Zorian Quartet. Of the three movements in this score, there
is little to suggest the influence of Purcell in the first, which is pervaded by shadows of sonata form. Most of the
movement's motifs are derived from the opening leap of an upward major tenth from tonic to mediant and then
eventually from the third to the fifth scale degree. This leaping tenth and its continuation soon appears in G, then
D. The movement from mediant to dominant scale degrees never happens in quite the same way; however, the
turn figure used in its third statement plays a crucial role in the remainder of the movement. Britten reinstates C in
a varied statement of the tenth in the cello against more animated counterpoint. Structurally, the reappearance of C
is reminiscent of the classical repetition of the exposition; however, Britten's scheme is more varied, and he moves
from C to F-Lydian, G, and B-flat-Lydian. The B-natural of F-Lydian and the E-natural of B-flat-Lydian
effectively cancel the sense of movement to subdominant tonalities while simultaneously implying the enduring
primacy of C. The implication is soon realized, and the return of C effectively thwarts all efforts to establish a
secondaryPage 239 → tonal region. Glissandos fill in the leaping tenths at the commencement of the development
section. Britten places these glissandos as a background for the turn figure, which now appears in inversion,
augmentation, and polytonal contexts. The return to C (letter M) is unmistakable yet frustratingly brief. The coda
(nine measures after letter O) is an ethereal prolongation of the opening tenth from C to E, heard now in all voices,
during which the turn motif is sounded in augmentation as the top note in the strummed cello chords (quasi arpa).
The movement is one of Britten's most ingenious and satisfying creations. While acknowledging the tradition of
first-movement form, he draws from it unprecedented results as a consequence of a harmonic idiom originating in
the combination of various scales and modes that are primarily linear constructions.

The formal design of the C-minor Scherzo movement is more straightforward. Its Trio is a freely executed basso
ostinato on a six-measure theme (letter D). The ground bass assumes greater importance in the finale, which
Britten calls “Chacony”—a clear reference to Purcell, who wrote many such pieces. The nine-measure pattern in
sarabande rhythm is stated unisono at the opening.

Eighteen of the twenty variations follow the nine-measure pattern of the main theme. Variations are grouped into
sets of six by cadenzas for cello, viola, and first violin respectively. In the final variation and coda, Britten takes
pains to contradict, evade, or otherwise escape the underlying tonal authority of C major. Britten's tonal language
arises from the conflicts between modality and tonality, and between linear and harmonic construction. This tonal
idiom is his most significant allusion to Purcell, who wrote at a time when nascent functional harmony was
emerging from traditional modal counterpoint. The movement, about twenty minutes' length, is longer than
Beethoven's Grosse Fuge by about 25 percent. As we know, Beethoven's publishers rejected the movement as the
finale for Op. 130 because of its magnitude and musical intensity. Britten's Chacony is similarly overpowering,
but what colossal music!

Britten's String Quartet No. 3 (1975) was his last instrumental work. He died on 4 December 1976, just a few
weeks before the premiere on 19 December by the Amadeus Quartet at Snape Maltings Concert Hall. The five
movements of the piece are arranged in complementary pairs (i.e., 1 and 5, 2 and 4) with the central movement, a
lyrical piece for violin, acting as a fulcrum. Some materials in the Quartet are derived from his last opera, Death in
Venice (1973). This connection is clarified in the last movement, an epilogic Recitative and Passacaglia that
Britten called “La Serenissima,” the traditional nickname for the city of Venice.

Page 240 →
Two additional Britten works merit attention. These are his Lachrymae: Reflections on a Song of John Dowland,
Op. 48 (1950) for viola and piano, and his Sonata in C, Op. 65 (1960) for cello and piano. The former was written
for William Primrose, who gave the premiere with Britten at the piano on 20 June 1950 at the Aldegurgh Festival.
The latter work was composed for Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the first performance with Britten at
Aldeburgh on 7 July 1961.

The title of the viola piece is misleading: The song used as the premise for most of its ten movements is “If my
complaints could passions move.” The famous lachrymæ(i.e., tears) tune, “Flow, my tears,” is mentioned only in
the sixth variation. Britten arranged the piece for viola and string orchestra in 1976.

The Cello Sonata consists of five movements: Dialogo, Scherzo-pizzicato, Elegia, Marcia, and Moto perpetuo.
This succession of movements is similar to that in late eighteenth-century divertimentos—especially in the
conspicuous use of a march. The first movement, in sonata form, balances well with the energetic finale. The
Scherzo and Marcia are also structural counterparts. The elegy, in keeping with the divertimento tradition, is the
most lyrical and expressive of the five. Throughout the piece, Britten employs bitonality (in the march) and
octatonic configurations (especially in the last movement), features that he would have associated with Russian
composers generally.19

AMERICANS
George Whitefield Chadwick. Though he lived into the third decade of the twentieth century, Chadwick wrote all
of his chamber music by 1898, thePage 241 → year he completed his String Quartet No. 5 in D minor. Having
gone from his native Massachusetts to Leipzig to study with Salomon Jadassohn (1831-1902) and then to Munich
for further work with Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901), Chadwick became intimate with the Austro-German
musical tradition.20 He made his mark as a composer first in Germany with performances of two movements from
his String Quartet in G minor (1878) and, on another program, of his String Quartet No. 2 in C major (1879) and
an orchestral overture entitled Rip van Winkle. All of these had been written under the watchful eye of Jadassohn,
who was “almost a father” to Chadwick.21 Rheinberger was an intimidating but effective teacher who trained his
students “beyond the elements of music as taught at home by Lowell Mason and exposed them to expressive
possibilities wider than the church choir or brass band.”22

When he left Munich for Boston in March 1880, Chadwick already had some reputation as a composer and had
received favorable reviews in formidable journals including Dwight's Journal of Music, the Musikalisches
Wochenblatt, and the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. 23 In 1882, he was appointed to teach composition and
instrumentation at the New England Conservatory. He became the director in 1897 and worked there until his
retirement in 1930.24

Chadwick's mature chamber works begin with his String Quartet No. 3 in D (1885), which is dedicated to the
composer Arthur Foote. Its premiere was on 9 March 1887. The following year, the Kneisel Quartet played it on a
program devoted exclusively to Chadwick's music. The piece survived only in performing parts until 1986 when
Chadwick's full score was discovered quite by accident in a used bookshop in New York City. That score is
important since it provides alternate readings for some passages that were incorrectly written by the copyist who
made the parts.25 The second movement, a theme with variations in D minor, shows strong influences of the
variations of Schubert's Death and the Maiden quartet. Impressive, too, is the finale (Allegro vivace, D major),
which includes extensive and complex counterpoint.

Chadwick's String Quartet No. 4 in E minor was composed in the wake of Antonín Dvo ak's tenure at the National
Conservatory of Music in New York City. Chadwick knew him, his music, and his concern with nationalism. He
also knew the players of the Kneisel Quartet, who had given the premiere of Dvo ak's American Quartet, Op. 96
on 1 January 1894. Chadwick dedicated his Quartet to Franz Kneisel, and he and his Quartet played Chadwick's
Fourth for the first time on 21 December 1896 in Association Hall, Boston. These factors may account for the
prominence of folk elements, such as thePage 242 → prominent pentatonic (G, A, B, D, E) melody in the first
movement, the tune of the duple meter scherzo, which sounds very much like the hymn tunes in Southern
Harmony, as well as the metrical irregularity and Phrygian inflection of the descending supertonic of the eight-
measure theme of the finale. This theme becomes the basis of something roughly like a passacaglia; thus, these
features permeate the entire fabric of the movement.

Chadwick's String Quartet No. 5 in D minor was written for a quartet in which Timothée Adamowski played first
violin and his brother Josef played cello. Josef was on the NEC faculty and was, therefore, a colleague of
Chadwick's. As with the Third and Fourth Quartets, this one exhibits a lyricism that is reminiscent of folk
melodies. Their organization within clearly articulated forms again suggests the influence of Dvo ák; however,
Chadwick tends to changes tonalities more rapidly, even within the context of relaxed, inner movements. The
finale is rich in imitative counterpoint, but the polyphony is predicated on lyric subjects, thus preserving the
general character of the movement.

Considering that Chadwick played keyboard instruments, it is surprising that he scored with piano only in his
Piano Quintet in E-flat of 1887. The tonality of the piece and its musical gestures owe much to Schumann, both
his Piano Quintet and his Piano Concerto in A minor. Chadwick played the premiere of the piece with the Kneisel
Quartet on 23 January 1888 in Chickering Hall, Boston, both to his own and critics' satisfaction. In 1890, it was
issued in Leipzig and Boston by Arthur P. Schmidt, and was thus one of Chadwick's earliest published works.

Chadwick was a generous and supportive man who was eager to help fellow musicians both at NEC and in the
larger community of Boston. He expressed this camaraderie elegantly to Amy Beach in a letter written
immediately after the premiere of her Gaelic Symphony in 1896: “I always feel a thrill of pride myself whenever I
hear a fine new work by any one of us, and as such, you will have to be counted as, whether you will or not, one
of the boys.”26

Amy Marcy Cheny. At the age of eighteen, Cheny married Dr. Henry Harris Aubrey Beach, a prominent Bostonian
surgeon who was forty-three at the time. From that moment until Dr. Beach's death in 1910, Amy's professional
name was Mrs. H. H. A. Beach (1867-1944). Her principal chamber scores are the Sonata in A minor, Op. 34
(1896) for violin and piano (also arranged for flute and piano); Piano Quintet in F-sharp minor, Op. 67 (1907);
Theme and [6] Variations, Op. 80 (1916) for flute and string quartet; String Quartet in A minor, Op. 89 (1929);
and Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 150 (1938).

Page 243 →

The Sonata and the Quintet are expansive and demanding works that Beach performed regularly. The premiere of
the Sonata in January 1897 with Franz Kneisel marked the beginning of Beach's association with him and the
Kneisel Quartet, who took her Quintet into their repertoire. During her European tour following the deaths of her
husband and then of her mother, Clara Cheny on 18 February 1911, she played both works frequently.27 The
Sonata was already known in Germany since it had been played there on 28 October 1899 by pianist Teresa
Carreño and violinist Carl Halir. Both pieces were warmly received in the German cities where Beach performed.
Had it not been for the mobilization of troops for World War I, she might well have remained in that favorable
environment.

Even before her return to the United States, Beach had been booked for “at least thirty concerts.”28 Her concert of
16 December 1914 at Steinert Hall, Boston, was particularly important. The audience included George Whitefield
Chadwick, Arthur Foote, and Horatio Parker in addition to the leading music critics of Boston. Five major Boston
papers subsequently echoed Chadwick's praise of Beach's musicianship, both as performer and composer.

In both the Sonata and the Quintet, musical materials are handled skillfully, but traditionally. One contemporary
critic remarked concerning the Sonata that “The weakness of the work lies…in its total lack of original ideas.”29
This criticism does not apply to Beach's later works, however, and some of her chamber music, such as the single
movement String Quartet, shows impressive originality and independent thinking. For her musical materials, she
used three Eskimo or Inuit tunes, treating them sometimes within imaginative harmonic contexts, at other times in
imitative counterpoint, and in still other cases more rhapsodically throughout the various sections within the
Quartet.30 The tunes are austere in their simplicity, and Beach assumes the same general attitude in her treatment
of them. Most of the textures are a result of the linear progress of voices, chromaticism is pervasive but not
conventionally Romantic, and extensive dissonant passages sometimes obscure tonal focus. This Quartet is at once
intense in its harmonic idiom, yet reserved and understated in its lyrical expression.

The Quartet must have held a special place in Beach's own opinion since she originally designated it as Op.
79—thus suggesting that it originated around 1918—but when she put the piece in final form in January 1929, she
changed the opus number to 89. This decade-long gestation contrasts with the compositional histories of other
pieces, such as her Sonata for Violin and Piano, which, though much longer than the twenty-minute Quartet, she
completed in six weeks.31 Ironically, the Quartet wasPage 244 → heard only in a handful of private
performances—mostly bad—during the composer's lifetime. A public performance was given in November 1942,
when it was heard as part of the celebration in Washington, D.C., of Beach's seventy-fifth birthday.32 It was
among the few of her chamber works not published during her lifetime despite the fact that Arthur P. Schmidt
Company had accepted it for publication.33 First the Great Depression, then World War II prevented Schmidt
from issuing the piece.

Beach started her Piano Trio at the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire, on 2 June 1938 and
finished it on the eighteenth. In it, she used some of her older pieces. Her song “Allein,” Op. 35, No. 2, figures
prominently in the second movement, Lento espressivo, which uses two lyrical segments based on the song and its
novel yet sumptuous harmonies to frame a fast central section in duple meter that acts as a scherzo—exactly as
Franck had done in his Grand pièce symphonique (1862). This scherzo section, incidentally, is based on a setting
of the Inuit song “The Returning Hunter” from Beach's suite for piano, Eskimos (1907). Owing to the dual
function of the second movement, the third movement is the finale.

Arthur Foote. The numerous chamber works of Foote (1853-1937) include String Quartet No. 1 in G minor
(1883), Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor (1882), Sonata in G minor (1889) for violin and piano, Piano Quartet in C,
(1890), String Quartet No. 2 in E (1893), Piano Quintet in A minor (1897), Piano Trio No. 2 in B (1907), String
Quartet No. 3 in D (1907), and Nocturne and Scherzo (1918) for flute and string quartet. The nocturne is better
known in its orchestral version, “Night Piece” for flute and orchestra.

Foote studied at the New England Conservatory of Music, then with John Knowles Paine at Harvard University,
where he received the first master's degree in music awarded by any American university. His primary instrument
was piano (though he played organ too), and from 1921 until his death, he taught piano at NEC. His chamber
works including piano are especially attractive, though all are written in a later Romantic harmonic style with
clear, memorable melodies and classically inspired formal designs.
Page 245 →

THIRTEEN
Strictly Confidential: The Chamber Music of Dmitri Shostakovich
SOCIAL REALIST OR VICTIM?
The principal chamber works of Shostakovich consist of two piano trios (Op. 8, 1923; Op. 67, 1944), sonatas for
cello and piano, violin and piano, and viola and piano (Op. 40, 1934; Op. 134, 1968; Op. 147, 1975), the Piano
Quintet in G minor (Op. 57, 1940), and fifteen string quartets written between 1938 and 1974. String Quartet No.
1 in C major, Op. 49 is an easygoing work that he wrote for the Glazunoff Quartet, which consisted of his
colleagues on the string faculty of the St. Petersburg Conservatory.1 Shostakovich's remaining chamber works
reveal ethnic elements that sound, at times, distinctively Russian, and at other times, distinctively Jewish.2

Unraveling the informational knots inherent both in Shostakovich's music and in commentaries about it is a
complex task. Some see him as a social realist who advanced the agenda of the Communist Party, while others
view him as the helpless victim of a ruthless, totalitarian regime. The publication of the composer's memoirs in
1979 has led to a rejection of both images, and has given us the portrait of a composer who conformed to Soviet
guidelines in a superficial way while embedding encoded messages of rebellion, criticism, and ironic commentary
in at least some of his scores.3

As a young composer, Shostakovich focused on public genres, such as symphony, opera, and ballet. These were
the media that formed the tastes of the general public; thus, composers who were sincere about advancing Page
246 →Soviet ideology devoted their efforts to these genres. Chamber music, on the other hand, was considered
elitist music.4 In the early years of his career, Shostakovich produced only a handful of chamber works. His
youthful Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 8 was written following the death of his father, Dmitri Boleslavovich, in
February 1922. To help support the family during the hard times that ensued, Shostakovich improvised on the
piano to accompany silent films. It was there, in the cinema, that he and his musical companions learned the score
for this elegiac trio, his first chamber work. The Trio is a single movement in a richly Romantic style. Little of the
characteristic Shostakovich can be heard in the piece, save for his uncanny ability to switch effortlessly from lush
lyricism to impish, scherzolike gestures. Shostakovich did not regard this production of his youth as a significant
work, and it only became known after Boris Tishchenko (b. 1939) made an edition of the piece and restored the
final twenty-two measures that had been lost from the piano part.

The Sonata in D minor for cello and piano was written before he first ran afoul of Soviet authorities in 1936.5 Its
four movements include an expansive but conventional sonata-allegro first movement, a brief Allegro that seems
almost like a transition to the third movement, a Largo of real emotional depth, and a virtuosic Allegro finale. The
piece is dedicated to Victor Kubatsky, a cellist whom Shostakovich met in 1925 and who remained one of the
composer's closest friends. Kubatsky and Shostakovich gave the first performance in St. Petersburg on 25
December 1934. Interpreters of the sonata should be aware of the comments of Arnold Ferkelman, a cellist who
played the sonata with Shostakovich:

Dmitri Dmitriyevich was a brilliant pianist and had an incredible technique…. He knew all the music
from memory, not just his own sonata…. He liked playing quickly and loudly, and he took incredibly
fast tempi. I never succeeded in getting any other pianist to take such tempi. His playing was on the
dry side, but on the other hand he played very loudly.6

The Piano Quintet in G minor was apparently to have been the composer's second string quartet; however, he had
an urge to travel at the time. He realized that if he wrote a piano quintet, he would be invited to tour with whatever
ensemble was performing the piece.7 The first performance of the Quintet, given by the Beethoven Quartet with
the composer in Moscow on 23 November 1940, was greeted with enthusiasm. The Leningrad premiere with the
Glazunoff Quartet was equally successful.
It was in the score of the Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor that ShostakovichPage 247 → found his characteristic voice
as a composer of chamber music. As with many piano trios by central European and Russian composers
previously surveyed, this one is an elegy: It was begun late in 1943 probably in memory of his student Veniamin
Fleyshman, who had been killed defending Leningrad on 14 September 1941. In 1943, Shostakovich undertook a
completion of Fleyshman's opera, Rothschild's Violin, an opera on a Jewish theme. On 11 February 1944, the
musicologist Ivan Sollertinsky died. Shostakovich wrote to the widow that “Ivan Ivanovich was my very closest
and dearest friend…. To live without him will be unbearably difficult.”8 Apparently, Shostakovich changed the
dedicatee of his memorial piece, and fired with devotion, he resumed work on 15 February, completing all four
movements by 13 August.

It was during these months that Shostakovich read news reports about the Nazi death camps where Jews awaiting
their own deaths were forced to dance beside the graves into which their bodies would soon be thrown. The
composer embodies these frantic dances in the finale of his Trio; thus, Shostakovich's expression of personal grief
as a result of Sollertinsky's death was complemented in the Trio by another and equally powerful sentiment:
outrage at the deaths of thousands at the hands of totalitarian regimes that targeted specific citizens among their
populations as the objects of their hatred.9

Although Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky became the official dedicatee of the Trio, the work's genesis in connection
with Fleyshman's death left its traces. “Shostakovich recognized the uniqueness of both the Holocaust and the
Jewish experience. Furthermore, against official Soviet policy, he identified the Holocaust as a particularly Jewish
catastrophe: the Jews were the primary victims and it was they who would…bear the scars of this experience in
their collective psyche”;10 however, in the Trio and in other works, Shostakovich uses Jewish musical topics as a
broader signal indicative of the victimization of humanity.11

The shadow of death pervades the entire Trio. The very choice of this medium is portentous; the ghostly
harmonics of the canonic opening arouse further suspicions; the apparent joviality of the brief second movement is
undercut by the harmonic shifts that disrupt the diatonic goals of its music; the passacaglia design of the third
movement “is a twentieth-century variation on the baroque topic of the lament bass with the descending chromatic
tetrachord. [However], the chromatic descent takes place not in the bass, but in the upper voice of the right hand,
which chromatically connects F4 down to B3 (omitting only C#4).”12 The concluding Allegretto is an unusual
rondo that recalls both the canonic E-minor theme of the first movementPage 248 → and the B-flat minor
passacaglia theme as the piece draws toward its close; thus, even without knowledge of the compositional
circumstances of this piece, the finale can in no way be read as a positive conclusion.

Anguish is embedded into the movement's structural materials; so, too, is the dilemma of Jews at the hands of
anti-Semitic governments. “Shostakovich deliberately adopts in much of the movement a Jewish folk idiom:
jaunty, highly accented, metrically regular dance rhythms; the pizzicati, strummed multiple-stop chords and
soloistic effects of the Jewish fiddler; and the ubiquitous flattened-second scale degree and melodic augmented
seconds.”13

That Jews were the victims of Nazi executioners in this specific instance does not preclude a broader
interpretation of Shostakovich's grief and outrage. The composer's quotation from the Trio in his String Quartet
No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 (1960) shows that his musical outcry was addressed as much to Stalin in the U.S.S.R.
as to Hitler. Ironically, the Trio won the Stalin Prize (class II) in 1946.

String Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 68, was the first of fourteen quartets Shostakovich wrote for the Beethoven
Quartet: Dmitri Tsyganov, Vasily Shirinsky, Vadim Borisovsky, and Sergei Shirinsky.14 Shostakovich dedicated
his Second Quartet to Vissarion Shebalin (1902-1963), a composer on the faculty of the Moscow Conservatory
from 1928, its director from 1942 until 1948, the teacher of Tikhon Khrennikov (1913-2007), Edison Denisov
(1929-1996), and Sophia Gubaidulina (b. 1931), and a chamber-music enthusiast. Shebalin wrote nine string
quartets, the Piano Trio in A, Op. 39 (1947), the sonatas, Op. 51, No. 1 for violin and piano (1958), Op. 51, No. 2
for viola and piano (1954), and Op. 54, No. 3 for cello and piano.15

Shostakovich grew cordial with the players of the Beethoven Quartet and dedicated string quartets No. 3 in F
major, Op. 73 (1946) and No. 5 in B-flat major, Op. 92 (1952) to them. Years later, as the inevitable end of their
years together approached, he penned individual quartets dedicated to each player: Nos. 11 in F minor, Op. 122
(1966) to the memory of Vasily Shirinsky, 12 in D-flat major, Op. 133 (1968) to Tsyganov, 13 in B-flat minor,
Op. 138 (1970) to Borisovsky, and 14 in F-sharp major, Op. 142 (1973) to Sergei Shirinsky. He rounded out the
set of memorial quartets with No. 15 in E-flat minor, Op. 144 (1974)—for himself! Owing to the sudden death of
the cellist, Sergei Shirinsky, on 18 October 1974, the premiere was entrusted to the Taneyev Quartet. This final
quartet consists of six adagios designated respectively as Elegy, Serenade, Intermezzo, Nocturne, Funeral March,
and Epilogue.

Page 249 → Page 250 →

As these brief historical comments on the quartets show, Shostakovich viewed the string quartet as a highly
personal medium. His Eighth Quartet, Op. 110 (1960), is so intimate that it may be considered his musical
autobiography. He revealed his intentions in writing the piece in the following letter of 19 July 1960 to his lifelong
friend Isaak Glickman:

I wrote an ideologically deficient quartet nobody needs. I reflected that if I die some day then it's
hardly likely anyone will write a work dedicated to my memory. So I decided to write one myself.
You could even write on the cover: “Dedicated to the memory of the composer of this quartet.”16

Shostakovich penned the Eighth Quartet during a trip to Dresden, where Five Days and Five Nights, directed by
Leo Arnshtam, was being filmed. Shostakovich was to create the score for the movie, which recounts the bombing
of that city during World War II. In his public remarks and the formal dedication of the piece, he indicated that it
is was written “in memory of the victims of fascism and war”; however, the musical materials of the Quartet
suggest a more specific victim. Embedded within the Quartet are quotations from Shostakovich's Symphonies
Nos. 1 and 5, the Jewish theme from the finale of the Trio, Op. 67, cello Concerto No. 1, the Russian song
“Languishing in Prison,” and “Sergei, my love,” an aria from his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mzensk District. The
work's five movements proceed without break and are unified by a recurring motif, the motto D, S, C, H (i.e., D,
E-flat, C, B-natural) which appears in all of them.17

Of the three largo movements (1, 4, and 5), the first and last are the most densely contrapuntal elaborations of the
motto. The second movement, a frantic Allegro molto juxtaposing the Jewish theme of Op. 67 with statements of
the motto in augmentation, leads without break into the third, an Allegretto, which is a surrealistic waltz. In the
fourth movement, the first violin plays the prison song in C-sharp minor within the texture of a recitative;
however, the threefold repetitions of fortissimo chords in the lower strings are not “supportive,” as they would be
in a typical recitativo. They seem instead to be foreboding, almost menacing. The tone of the concluding Largo
becomes gloomy at the reappearance of the motto, where Shostakovich calls for muted strings. The movement
ends in utter desolation with a theme recalled from the first movement.

The premiere of Op. 110 took place in St. Petersburg on 2 October 1960. The Moscow premiere, also given by the
Beethoven Quartet, followed on 9 October. Despite its somber message, the Eighth Quartet was immediately
recognized as masterpiece.

Page 251 →

Many of the concealed meanings of the piece are now common knowledge, but the verifiable existence in the
music of encrypted messages gives rise to further questions relating to it specifically and Shostakovich's works in
general: Do we hear the quotation of the First Symphony differently if we understand that the person to whom that
symphony was dedicated, Misha Kvardi, a close friend of Shostakovich's from their student days at the St.
Petersburg Conservatory, was arrested and executed in 1929? What is the significance of the Jewish elements in
the finale of Quartet No. 4 in D major, Op. 83 (1949), which, though completed early in 1950, was withheld from
performance until after the death of Stalin in 1953? What is the meaning of the quotation in No. 5 in B-flat major,
Op. 92 (1952) of a theme from the Trio (1949) for clarinet, violin, and piano of Galina Ustvolskaya, who had been
among Shostakovich's students at the Conservatory? Why, in No. 12 in D-flat major, Op. 133 (1968), presented to
Dmitri Tsiganov for his sixty-fifth birthday on 12 March 1968, does Shostakovich use a twelve-tone row—the
epitome of formalism—in the opening cello theme? These and other curious features can hardly have happened by
accident.

TWO LATE SONATAS

Leonid Kogan and David Oistrakh were the leading Soviet violinists of the mid-twentieth century. Shostakovich
first encountered Oistrakh in 1935 when he won the first prize in the second All-Union Competition. Soon
afterward, Shostakovich and Oistrakh were members of a Soviet delegation of performers visiting Turkey. The
two joined with the cellist Milos Sádlo in performances of Shostakovich's Trio, Op. 67, which they eventually
recorded.18 In 1947 and 1948, while working on the First Violin Concerto, Shostakovich consulted with Oistrakh
about the feasibility of certain passages. Oistrakh gave the premiere of the Concerto with the Leningrad
Philharmonic Orchestra on 29 October 1955, and Shostakovich dedicated both this and the Second Violin
Concerto to him. In anticipation of Oistrakh's sixtieth birthday in September 1968, Shostakovich had begun
writing his Sonata, Op. 134 (1968) for violin and piano; however, the score was not completed until 23 October of
that year.

The pianist Svyatoslav Richter was recruited to present the official premieres of the Sonata with Oistrakh.19 These
were on 3 May 1969 in Moscow and on 23 September of that year in St. Petersburg. A preview of the piece had
been given on 8 January 1969 at a conference of the Russian Union of Composers with the pianist Moisey
Vainberg.

Page 252 →

The Violin Sonata was written shortly after String Quartet No. 12, which, as we have noted, uses twelve-tone
elements within a clearly tonal context. The same is true of the Sonata. The opening Andante movement presents
the twelve-note series followed by its inversion in the piano. In subsequent permutations of the theme, the violin
enters with a countersubject. These two ideas, alternatively manipulated by piano and violin, become the main
material of the movement. Frequently the texture is astonishingly sparse with the violin and piano playing in two-
part counterpoint. The second movement (Allegretto) is an energetic scherzo, and the finale (Largo-Andante) is a
passacaglia prefaced by an eight-measure introduction based on twelve-tone elements. The passacaglia theme is
stated pizzicato by the violin. The entrance of the piano initiates a series of lean, austere contrapuntal variations,
but Shostakovich includes variations that function essentially as cadenzas, first for the piano, then for the violin. A
motif from the first movement—easily identifiable owing to its ornamental trills—appears in the final moments of
the movement.

Shostakovich's ultimate composition, the Sonata, Op. 147 (1975) for viola and piano, was composed between 25
June and 6 July while the composer was on his deathbed. The piece is dedicated to Fyodor Druzhinin, violist of
the Beethoven Quartet at the time, and he gave the first public performance of the piece in St. Petersburg on 1
October 1975. Of its three movements—Moderato, Allegretto, and Adagio—the second and third contain explicit
quotations: The former quotation, providing the most cheerful and energetic music of the piece, comes from his
early opera after Gogol entitled The Gamblers; the later, heavy with pathos, appropriates the opening motif from
the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata; a less obvious quotation, also from Beethoven, is the fugue
subject of the Piano Sonata in A-flat major, Op. 110. This pair of Beethoven quotations, one familiar and
transparent, the other unfamiliar and opaque, may well have been chosen to reflect Shostakovich's feelings about
his own output, specifically, that Soviet apparatchiks may interpret his works to advance party agendas, but that
their deep, inner meanings would forever elude them.

LATER SOVIET COMPOSERS: SOFIA GUBAIDULINA, EDISON DENISOV,

ALFRED SCHNITTKE
Shostakovich was a role model for the generation of Soviet composers born during the second quarter of the
twentieth century. Not only his musicianship, but also, his personal sincerity were a source of inspiration. He was
Page 253 →generous with his encouragement of young composers, and many, including Edison Denisov
(1929-1996), Boris Tishchenko, and Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931) benefited from his support and guidance.20

The very prolific Denisov studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Shebalin. In 1959, he was appointed to teach
instrumentation. His works include pieces for conventional chamber ensembles, such as his sonatas for flute and
piano (1960), violin and piano (1963), alto saxophone and piano (1970), and clarinet and piano (1993), Suite
(1961) for cello and piano, String Quartet No. 2 (1961), Wind Quintet (1969), Piano Quintet (1987), Clarinet
Quintet (1987), and Quartet (1989) for flute, violin, viola, and cello.

Denisov generally writes in an expanded tonal idiom, but sudden shifts in register, discontinuity of phrases, and
other features that disrupt traditional musical progress give his music a novel sound. Sometimes, as in the finale of
the two-movement Wind Quintet, these antics are amusing, if not downright comical. He also use makes effective
use of extended instrumental techniques, such as flutter-tonguing, multiphonics, and microtones. He draws freely
from various styles including jazz and be-bop, as can be seen in the third movement (Allegro moderato) of the
fantastically difficult Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano. Formal designs take their point of departure from
Classical models, but are freely altered. In the Sonata for Flute and Piano, for instance, he writes a continuous
piece in three sections, with the tempo scheme slow, fast, slow. The first, slow section comprises about half of the
entire piece and functions as an exposition. The second, fast section is about one-quarter of the piece and serves as
a development section. The final section of the piece—about one quarter of its total length—is another slow
section that is clearly a recapitulation of the opening section. The three sections taken together thus suggest a
multimovement design in which each section corresponds to exposition, development, and recapitulation. This
format is often called a “supersonata” or a “sonata in one.”

His chamber works are often scored for unconventional ensembles. The Romantische Musik (Romantic music;
1968), for example, is for oboe, violin, viola, cello, and harp. In some instances, such as the Trio (1981) for oboe,
cello, and harpsichord, he writes modern music for early-music ensembles.21 Among his most exotic
instrumentations are those of “Diane dans le vent d'automne” (Diana in the autumn wind; 1984) for viola, piano,
vibraphone, and double bass, which became the first of the Three Pictures after Paul Klee (1985) for oboe, horn,
piano, vibraphone, viola, and double bass. The pieces are dedicated to Igor Boguslavsky, whose playing is
featuredPage 254 → in the second movement, “Senecio,” which is a viola solo. The third movement, “Child on
the Platform,” is pointillistic and borders on atonality. The Trio for oboe, cello, and harpsichord reflects Denisov's
fascination with the sonorities of collegium instruments, but he was equally interested in their repertoire; thus, he
wrote several compositions inspired by the music of Bach, the most important of which is Es ist genug (It is
enough; 1984) for viola and piano. This piece is a dual homage alluding both to Bach's version of the chorale and
Berg's use of it in his Violin Concerto (1935).22

Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931) was born during the decade that “saw the most savage persecution of religion in the
entire Soviet period.”23 The Law on Religious Associations of 8 April 1929 remained in force until October 1990.
This law “limited the rights of religious believers to the performance of religious services in registered buildings,
and made almost every other kind of religious witness or activity illegal.”24 These policies caused difficulties for
Gubaidulina, who is a deeply spiritual and religious individual. Her own statements about her expression of
religious convictions in art are unequivocal:

All my works are religious…. I've never written non-religious pieces…. I feel a great desire to realize
my religious needs within art…. For us, the artists, it is absolutely necessary to experience this
religious reunion with the highest essence of our souls. Without it, we would be unable to work with
such an inspiration. I understand the word “religion” in its direct meaning: as re-ligio (re-legato), that
is, a restoration of legato between me (my soul) and God. By means of my religious activity I restore
this interrupted connexion. Life interrupts this connextion: it leads me away, into different troubles,
and God leaves me at these times. This is unbearable pain: by creating, through our art, we strive to
restore this legato.25
The conflict between Gubaidulina's inspiration and Soviet policy sometimes left her no choice but to conceal the
religious basis of some of her pieces. At the Moscow premiere of her Seven Words (1982) for cello, bayan, and
strings, for example, the relationship between the instrumental movements and New Testament scriptures went
unmentioned, even though the music contains metaphors alluding to the events of the Passion; moreover,
Gubaidulina quotes the melody for “I thirst” as it appeared in the Seven Words of Heinrich Schütz. 26

The title of Gubaidulina's In croce (In the cross) tells us something about its religious inspiration as well as its
musical materials. Originally scored in 1979 for cello and organ, the piece was arranged for cello and bayan in
1992Page 255 → for the accordionist Elsbeth Moser. The themes of In croce reflect the perpendicular beams of
the cross in their antithetical construction and disparate registers: The organ begins with diatonic arpeggios in a
high register, while the cello begins in a low register with consistently chromatic lines. As the piece progresses,
the organ part moves into a progressively lower tessitura while the cello moves into a higher one. About two-
thirds through the piece (i.e., at the horizontal beam of the cross) Gubaidulina introduces an extended monologue
for the cello, the single episode in the piece in which the polyphonic capacities of the instrument are explored.
When the organ part resumes, its writing is chromatic. Following a varied reprise of the opening material, the
cello brings the piece to its close with a slow glissando back to its original, low register.

In croce draws from Christian heritage, which is not surprising since Gubaidulina is a member of the Russian
Orthodox Church. In other works, she takes a more ecumenical approach. Her personal history predisposed her
toward religious eclecticism: Her father was Tatar, and her paternal grandfather was a mullah; her mother was
Russian, but of both Jewish and Christian ancestry.27 A blend of spiritual perspectives illuminates Gubaidulina's
score for flute, viola, and harp entitled Garden of Joys and Sorrows. This colorful ensemble—used previously by
Debussy—explores thoughts inspired by two literary sources, “Sayat-Nova,” a poem by Iv Oganov, and Stimmen
by Francisco Tanzer (1921-2003).28 The “garden” of the title is the locale of Oganov's poem as well as an Islamic
symbol for paradise. Tanzer's Western verses consider the concept of borders such as those between nations,
religions, life and death, creativity and imagination, joys and sorrows. The roughly twenty-five-minute piece
abounds in distinctive sonorities including diatonic arpeggios, chromatic motifs, long glissandos, spirals of short,
microtonal glissandos, pizzicatos, sul ponticello, and harmonics. These sonorities are woven into an intricate web
of recurrences that lead to the recitation ad libitum of Tanzer's verses:

When is it really over?

What is the true end?

All boundaries are driven into the earth

With a piece of wood

Or the imprint of a shoe.

Until then…

Here is the boundary.

All that is artificial.

Tomorrow we will play

Another game.

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In addition to these works whose distinctive titles are indicative of their spiritual orientation, Gubaidulina has
written many other chamber works including some with generic titles. Among these are Der Seiltänzer (The
tightrope dancer; 1993) for violin and piano; Meditation on the Bach Chorale “Vor deinem Thron tret ich hiermit”
(1993) for harpsichord and string quintet; Pantomime (1966) for double bass and piano; a Piano Quintet (1957);
Quasi hoquetus (In the manner of a hocket; 1984) for viola, bassoon (or cello), and piano; a Sonata (1975) for
double bass and piano; a Sonata (Rejoice! 1981) for violin and cello; four string quartets (1971, 1987, 1987,
1993); a String Trio (1989) for violin, viola, and cello; a Sonata (Detto I; 1978) for organ and percussion (1
player); Five Etudes (1965) for harp, double bass, and percussion (1 player); a wealth of pieces for ensembles with
percussion; and the Hommage à T. S. Eliot (1991) for soprano, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violins i and 2, viola, cello,
and double bass. This last work was requested by the violinist Gidon Kremer, whose advocacy of Gubaidulina's
Violin Concerto (Offertorium; 1980) has done much to spread her reputation. The premiere of Hommage à T. S.
Eliot shared the program with Schubert's Octet in F major, Op. 166, D. 803, and the commission from
Philharmonie of Cologne specified that the piece should have the same instrumentation. In her Fourth Quartet,
Gubaidulina capitalized on the adventurous performances that have typified the repertoire of the Kronos Quartet
over the years. In this single-movement piece, she actually combines three quartets, two recorded in advance, and
one performing live. Kronos gave the first performance of this highly original work in 1994.

Gubaidulina has articulated the religious intentions behind some of her pieces. In other cases, the titles are
suggestive. With her numerous works that simply bear generic titles, the mysteries have yet to be unraveled; but,
if we take her at her word, the mysteries are there. “I can't think of any way to explain the existence of art other
than as a means to express something greater than ourselves. I can't reach a single musical decision except with
the goal of making a connection to God.”29

Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) was one of the most talented and prolific Soviet composers. Through his contacts
with Filip Gershkovich, a native of Vienna and an admirer of its musical heritage, both ancient and modern,
Schnittke became familiar with the music of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg.30 Gershkovich shared his insights
about modern music with Denisov and Gubaidulina, too; thus, this group of modernists provided mutual support
in their exploration of contemporary techniques while being scorned by the apparatchiks of the Soviet
establishment.

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Schnittke's String Quartet No. 1 (1966) was written during the height of his enthusiasm for contemporary
techniques and is serial throughout its three movements. Like Schoenberg, Schnittke chose movement titles that
suggested a connection with musical tradition: Sonata, Canon, and Cadenza. The titles were of no avail, and after
the Quartet's premiere by the Borodin Quartet on 7 May 1967, it was filed in the “anti-Soviet” drawer.

In his next major chamber score, the Serenade (1968) for clarinet, violin, double bass, percussion, and piano, he
explored another contemporary style: mobile form. In Senza tempo, the first of its three movements, the clarinet
begins with an inverted smear that sounds like the opening of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue turned upside down.
After this smear, the five instrumentalists, like a committee gone haywire, make simultaneous statements of their
musical contentions. In each of their statements, we hear the unmistakable influence of American jazz, which was
generally held in reproach by the Union of Soviet Composers. The percussionist acts as moderator, and at five
junctures in the Introduction, he brings the cacophonous group to order with bangs of the gavel—in this case,
motifs of three, five, seven, nine, and eleven notes respectively on the bells. The second movement, devoid of
jazzy elements, is a subdued Lento primarily for clarinet and piano. Here, the pianist is asked to play trills directly
on the strings, scratch the windings of the strings with the fingernails, and play clusters. Schnittke returns to the
idioms of mobile form and jazz in the Allegretto finale. As the movement draws to its close, reminiscences of the
first movement are heard, and the bells too return, but here they are given an elaborate cadenza. The mélange of
five returns briefly before the clarinet brings the piece to its conclusion.

The year 1968 also saw the creation of Schnittke's Sonata No. 2 for violin and piano, one of his boldest
experiments in polystylism, the collagelike juxtaposition of musical styles and techniques that eventually became
Schnittke's trademark.31 The music originated as a film score for Andrei Khrzhanovsky's cartoon-film Glass
Accordion, which uses images ranging from the Italian Renaissance to paintings of Salvador DalÍ, but has no
verbal content whatsoever. The Sonata, subtitled “Quasi una sonata,” contains conspicuous links with Western
musical traditions, such as the motif B, A, C, H (i.e., B-flat, A, C, B-natural) and the principle of opposing musical
elements that has characterized the sonata as a genre since the time of Haydn and Mozart. In Schnittke's piece,
polarized tonalities are replaced by tonal and atonal materials. Although it is written as a single, continuous
movement, its three subsections give the impression of a multimovement composition.

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Among Schnittke's many film scores is one for The Adventures of a Dentist (1965). In 1972, Schnittke
transformed this music into the Suite in Olden Style, a straightforward foray into neoclassicism for violin and
harpsichord or piano. There is hardly anything by way of stylistic parody in the piece. Not only is the ensemble a
typical Baroque one, but also the harmonic style, rhythmic details, formal designs, and ornamentations within the
movements are generally authentic. Schnittke must have felt that the piece was too tame, so he rescored it in 1986
for an anachronistic ensemble of viola d'amore, harpsichord, vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, and bells. The
Suite consists of a Pastorale (in the manner of a Siciliano), Ballet, Minuet, Fugue, and Pantomime.

The death of Maria Vogel, Schnittke's mother, prompted him to compose the Piano Quintet (1976), a five-
movement work that opens with a piano solo reminiscent of the music of Shostakovich. The body of the first
movement suggests sonata principles: The first musical topic is largely triadic. The polarity of musical materials,
therefore, is between the linear and the vertical, the chromatic and the triadic, the atonal and the tonal. Within this
context, tone clusters play a conspicuous role. The second movement is a waltz, but it is—like Ravel's La
valse—deranged and disoriented, a parody of a paradigm representing elegance, stability, and grandeur, but now
attired in tattered ball gowns and torn tuxedos. In the waltz, Schnittke uses thematic transformations of a theme
from the first movement. A concluding tone cluster (like a cinematographic fade-out) leads to the third movement,
which uses previous musical images in altered states. At this point, Schnittke modified the classical four-
movement plan by placing after the Andante third movement a still slower Lento as the fourth. The association
with fade-out techniques in film seems especially appropriate here, and Schnittke uses clusters like painkillers for
a dying victim. At the end of the ordeal, we reach the Moderato pastorale. This fifth movement is not a “finale.” It
has nothing to do with traditional concluding movements; instead, it is like the ending (happy) to a film. Schnittke
has given a couple of hints to verify his intention of a happy ending: The tempo indication reminds us of another
five-movement work, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, Op. 68; to confirm the allusion, Schnittke quotes
Beethoven's theme from the concluding Allegretto of that piece, which, according to Beethoven's scenario,
represents “glad and grateful feelings after the storm.” Perhaps we are to conclude that Maria Vogel died a holy,
peaceful death. Schnittke's Piano Quintet is one of his most powerful yet reassuring statements. Apparently, he felt
as much since he later made an orchestral version of the work entitled In memoriam.

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An unmetered, angular, and brooding monologue for unaccompanied cello opens Schnittke's Sonata (1978) for
cello and piano. When the latter instrument enters, it is with material conspicuously similar to the opening of the
first movement of Beethoven's Sonata in E-flat major, Les adieux, Op. 81a. The cello and piano alternate intense
monologues in the brief first movement. The second is a moto perpetuo in which the instruments seem to assume
an adversarial role, much like the disposition of instruments in BartÓk's two Violin Sonatas. The concluding
Largo commences with a baleful cello theme devoid of meter, periodic structure, or tempo. The tune develops into
a cantilena recalling Beethoven's “Farewell” motif in the piano part, but now, with new material in the cello.
Articulation serves a structural function in this piece, and closing statements—cadence patterns in the first
movement, closing phrases in the second, and final periods in the third—use pizzicato in the cello part; moreover,
a durational crescendo takes place as the piece unfolds: Each movement lasts approximately twice as long as the
previous one (i.e., three minutes, six minutes, twelve minutes). This architectural design is, if not unprecedented,
then, at least, rare.

Schnittke's Stille Musik (Tranquil music; 1979) for violin and cello was his next chamber work. A substantial
movement of six or seven minutes' duration, the piece is, as the title suggests, tranquil. In addition to its inherent
musical charm, its unusual instrumentation is enticing.
String Quartet No. 2 (1980) is dedicated to the memory of Larissa Shepitko, the film director with whom
Schnittke had collaborated on several films and who died in an automobile accident at the age of forty-one. It was
commissioned by Universal Edition and was the compulsory piece for that year's International String Quartet
Competition at Evian. The four-movement quartet begins with string harmonics that evolve in imitative
contrapuntal texture. If not an allusion to the opening of the Piano Trio, Op. 67 of Shostakovich, then, at least, that
work served as the model for Schnittke's short opening movement. The second movement, Agitato, the longest of
the four, generally exhibits frantic superficial rhythmic activity, but the underlying harmonies are simple and
change slowly, and the formal design of the movement is a fairly straightforward rondo with varied reprises plus a
coda. Some of the themes—probably those in the tranquil sections of the coda—were apparently drawn from
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Russian-Orthodox chant. The melodic style, rhythmic contours, and texture of
Russian church music are increasingly apparent in the third movement, Mesto, and the last, Moderato, both of
which are constructed in the manner of a litany with modifications of each iteration.

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Some statements venture into polytonality, others employ harmonics that recall the opening movement (again à la
Shostakovich, Op. 67). The last movement begins and ends inaudibly—quasi niente, according to Schnittke's
direction. The effect is mesmerizing.

In 1982 Schnittke became a Roman Catholic. For practical purposes, he generally made his confession in the
Russian Orthodox Church.

In the three movements of String Quartet No. 3 (1983), polystylism involves the use of cadence patterns from the
Stabat Mater of Orlando di Lassus, the subject of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge, and Shostakovich's D, S, C, H motto.
Additional allusions appear in subsequent movements: The Agitato (second movement) borrows its theme from
the second subject of Beethoven's Pathétique Sonata, Op. 13, a piece that Schnittke, as a pianist, would have
known well. The Pesante (third movement) references the last song of Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
(Songs of a wayfarer). The text reeks with feelings of alienation, feelings that Schnittke is known to have shared:
“Die zwei blauen Augen von meinem Schatz, die haben mich in die weite Welt geschickt…. O Augen blau,
warum habt ihr mich angeblickt? Nun hab' ich ewig Leid und Grämen” (The two blue eyes of my beloved, they
have exiled me into the wide world…. O blue eyes, why did you look upon me? Now I have perpetual sorrow and
grief).32 The introduction, juxtaposition, transformation, and recombination of these musical referents in the
course of the piece results in a troubling score heavy with implications but offering neither solutions nor even the
slightest sense of closure.

The String Trio (1985) for violin, viola, and cello was commissioned by the Alban Berg Gesellschaft to celebrate
the centennial of Berg's birth. Oleg Krysa, Fyodor Druzhinin, and Valentin Feigin gave the premiere at the
Moscow Conservatory on 2 June 1985. Several weeks later, on 19 July, Schnittke had a stroke—the first of half a
dozen that he suffered before his death in 1998. After this first stroke, he was declared clinically dead three times.
To the amazement of all, he rallied and went on to compose a great deal more music including two alternate
versions of the Trio: One in 1987 that he called Trio Sonata was scored for chamber orchestra; the other, dating
from 1992, is the Piano Trio. This last version was premiered by Mark Lubotsky, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the
composer's wife, Irina Schnittke, on 25 May 1993 at Evian.

In all three versions, the piece is essentially the same: two movements, Moderato and Adagio, using the same
themes are played without pause. The prominence of the tones A, B, E, G (i.e., A, B-flat, E, G) suggests that
Schnittke used letters from Alban Berg's name to generate one of the main motifs of the piece.33

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Schnittke's final chamber works include a variety of smaller occasional pieces written as birthday greetings or
memorials. The noteworthy exceptions are his austere String Quartet No. 4 (1989), the longest of his quartets,
with three Lento movements separated by an Allegro and Vivace respectively, and the Sonata No. 3 (1994) for
violin and piano, which was premiered by Mark Lubotsky and Irina Schnittke on 10 October 1994 in Moscow.
These pieces are not much concerned with polystylism. The textures in both are generally sparse—a characteristic
feature of his late works in all genres—perhaps as a consequence of impaired motor control following multiple
strokes.

CHAMBER MUSIC OF THE SATELLITE NATIONS: WITOLD LUTOSLAWSKI,

KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI, ALEXANDER ARUTIUNIAN
Russian social-realist policies affected composers in Socialist Republics. The Pole Witold Lutoslawski
(1913-1994) was among them. His major chamber works include his String Quartet (1964), an essay in mobile
form consisting of an introductory first movement followed by the principal, second movement, and his Partita
(1984) for violin and piano. Modest yet interesting pieces that merit attention include Epitaph (1979) for oboe and
piano, and Grave (1981) for cello and piano.34

Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933), also in Poland, is best known for his large-ensemble works that explore myriad
possibilities of texture, register, dynamics, articulation, and so forth. These sound-mass compositions include
pieces such as his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. This style tends to be less useful in chamber scores,
though his two string quartets (1960, 1968) are essentially in this manner. More typical of his chamber style are
the String Trio (1990) for violin, viola, and cello, and the exquisitely beautiful Quartet (1993) for clarinet, violin,
viola, and cello, consisting of four movements (Adagio, Vivacissimo, Tempo di valse, Larghetto) that are titled
Notturno, Scherzo, Serenade, and Abschied (departure). These recent works are closer stylistically to the music of
Shostakovich. Intense lyricism pervades the outer, slow movements, both of which call for clarinet in A. The
Scherzo, which seems in its extensive unison writing to recall the “Intermede” of Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin
du temps, is in a traditional formal design and employs the characteristic fast, triple meter. All movements have
clear functional harmonic implications, and the final movement closes with an F-major triad. This engaging work
will doubtless become a classic in the relatively sparse repertoire for this ensemble. Pendercki'sPage 262 → most
recent chamber score is his two-movement Sextet (2000) for clarinet, horn, string trio, and piano.35

The Armenian composer Alexander Arutiunian (b. 1920) joined the Union of Composers in 1939, studied at the
Moscow Conservatory with Genrik Litinsky (1901-1985) and Nikolai Peiko (1916-1995), and won the state prize
of the U.S.S.R. in 1949. Arutiunian's chamber works are few, but skillfully written, challenging yet not
unreasonably difficult, and appealing both to listeners and performers. His most important works are the Retro-
Sonata (1983) for viola and piano, the Suite (1983) for wind quintet, the Poem-Sonata (1985) for violin and piano,
and the Suite (1992) for clarinet, violin, and piano. This last piece consists of four movements, Introduction,
Scherzo, Dialog, and Final. It is one of over 200 pieces commissioned by the Verdehr Trio, whose players include
Walter Verdehr, violin, Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, clarinet, and Gary Kirkpatrick, piano. As in much of his music,
elements of Armenian folk music pervade this colorful score.
Page 263 →

FOURTEEN
Two Fugitives from the Soviet Bloc: György Ligeti and Karel Husa
The Ligeti family settled in Transylvania at the end of the nineteenth century and became residents of Hungary.
(Since then, the town of his birth has become part of Romania.) Following the trends among Hungarian
nationalists at the time, they changed their German family name, Auer, to an approximation of it in Hungarian:
Ligeti.1 From 1941 until 1943, GyÖrgy Ligeti (1923-2006) attended Cluj Conservatory, where he studied
composition with Ferenc Farkas. In 1944, Ligeti was conscripted and—since he was a Jew—assigned to perilous
labor, transporting explosives. During the Holocaust, he lost both his father and his brother to the death camp at
Auschwitz. In 1945, Ligeti resumed music studies at the Budapest Academy of Music, first with with Sándor
Veress and then with Farkas. Ligeti completed the program in 1949 and joined the faculty as a teacher of harmony
and counterpoint in the following year.

Government censors monitored closely the musical output of innovative young composers like Ligeti. Works in a
quasi-BartÓkian style were permitted, but adventures like Musica ricercata for solo piano were prohibited. During
the 1950s, Liget experimented with serialism and other modern techniques.

These experiments coincided with the Hungarian revolution of October 1956. Imre Nagy appealed to the United
Nations for aid against Soviet domination. With popular support, he became premier of Hungary and organized a
neutral government. The Soviet response was decisive: Nagy was abducted and executed. Fearing for their own
lives, approximately 190,000 refugees fled the country in the following months. Ligeti explainedPage 264 → that
his escape was possible in December 1956 because the frontiers remained open, though Soviet forces had
surrounded Budapest.

The railway people organized trains for people who wanted to go [to]…the Austrian frontier; of
course, they never arrived at the frontier. The train stopped at every station, and they telephoned
ahead to the next station to find out if there were Russian soldiers there.

I and my wife took the train one day…. There had been some mistake and the warning had failed: the
train was surrounded by Russian military. But they didn't have enough people to cover the whole
train…. We in our end very quickly got out and into the town. Somebody told us to go to the post
office…. The next day, the postman took us…with ten or twelve people hidden under mailbags.

Then we were dropped quite close to the frontier…within the prohibited zone, with Russians
patrolling…. We knew we had reached the border when we fell into the mud where the mines had
been: the mines had been cleared during the revolution, because Austria refused to have trade with
Hungary while the border was mined.2

After he arrived in western Europe, Ligeti worked during 1957 and 1958 at West German Radio in Cologne,
where he became acquainted with Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) and the music of the avantgarde, especially
that of Pierre Boulez (b. 1925). Ligeti soon became involved with the Darmstadt Festivals, participating as an
attendant in 1957 and 1958, and then as a lecturer annually from 1959 until 1972. He taught there again in 1976,
and his works were featured in 1980 and 1984.

Ligeti wrote rather little chamber music, but several of his chamber works are quite extraordinary. Some of his
pieces, such as his early String Quartet No. 1, Metamorphoses nocturnes (Nocturnal metamorphoses; 1954) and
the Six Bagatelles (1956) for wind quintet, show the influence of BartÓk. Both scores are tremendously variegated
with occasional strands of imitation, modal tunes in a largely homophonic texture, sometimes including
considerable dissonance, and allusions to functional harmony. The Bagatelles were actually extracted from his
collection of piano pieces called Musica ricercata (1953). From these, he selected the third, fifth, and seventh
through tenth movements; four exhibit unbounded energy and biting rhythms, while the remaining two—placed
second and fifth in the set of six—are slow and melancholic.

In his later works, Ligeti often built sonic complexes from minuscule elements that could be altered gradually by a
predetermined process. Early Renaissance polyphony provided one of the models for this structural approach.Page
265 → In particular, Ligeti was fascinated by the way in which Ockeghem used “stagnating structures [in which]
the individual voices are constantly overlapping, just like waves washing one over another.”3

The Ten Pieces (1968) for wind quintet, commissioned by the Stockholm Philharmonic, is a good example of such
overlapping, individual voices—what he once called “supersaturated polyphony.” The pieces are terse, ranging
from half a minute to about three minutes in length. At times, the entire ensemble is pervaded by terse motifs—as
in the eighth piece, Allegro con delicatezza; nevertheless, Ligeti occasionally draws solo voices from these
amorphous clouds of sound. Ligeti has the flute change, at times, to alto flute and piccolo, and the oboe to cor
anglais and oboe d'amore. The harmonic idiom is highly dissonant and marked by dramatic contrasts. Tone
clusters, tone color, register, texture, and density also play crucial roles in these scores.

The five-movement String Quartet No. 2 (1968) employs many of the same compositional principles; the first,
second, and fifth movements exhibit Ligeti's penchant for heavily imbricated polyphony. Likewise, the
importance of compact musical particles subject to subtle modification is particularly apparent in the central
movement, “Come un meccanismo di precisione” (in the manner of a mechanism of precision). All five
movements are actually transformations of one basic musical idea; thus, despite all of its modernity, the piece
exhibits the organic construction that has been characteristic of the string quartet as a genre since the time of
Beethoven.

The Trio (1982) for violin, horn, and piano shares the same instrumentation as Brahms's Op. 40—a composition
Ligeti admired. The rhythmic complexities of the first movement show the influence of American minimalism.
The Bulgarian rhythms of the second movement are again reminiscent of BartÓk. The third movement recalls a
traditional scherzo and trio, while the finale, a Lamento, reverts to Ligeti's manner of the 1950s. The footprint of
Brahms's piece is apparent in Ligeti's pervasive use of horn fifths, a motif prominent in the final movement of
Brahms's Op. 40. Ligeti's writing for the horn recalls Brahms's use of the natural horn in Op. 40. In the Ligeti Trio,
though a valved horn is essential, he tends to write sections in which he changes the fundamental of the horn by
depressing a single valve. Within these sections, he limits the notes to those of the corresponding harmonic series
or readily available through modification of the embouchure. Ligeti's writing for the horn exploits the “out-of-
tune” notes; rather than avoiding them, he integrated them as a part of the timbre of the instrument specifically
noting that the natural mistunings should not be corrected.Page 266 → He creates a variegated microtonal system
by always changing the fundamental of the horn. Some phrases begin on the same pitch and are essentially the
same, but they are notated in different keys (i.e., with a different valve depressed), so the tunings of the notes are
completely different, thereby changing the sound of the phrase.4

Karel Husa (b. 1921) had hoped to become an engineer, but when the Nazis took control of Czechoslovakia in
March 1939, one of their first actions was to close the technical school in Prague on 18 November of that year.5
Husa, who had played violin since the age of eight, ultimately found himself at the Prague Conservatory in the
composition class of Jaroslav Ridky. Husa studied there from 1941 until 1945. He continued with Ridky for
graduate work at the Academy of Musical Arts in Prague, but much of this degree program was completed abroad
owing to the fact that Husa had won a French Government Fellowship to study at the École Normale de Musique
in Paris. There, from 1946 to 1948, he studied with Arthur Honegger (1892-1955). In addition, he took private
composition lessons with Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) from 1946 to 1949. During a short visit to Prague in the
summer of 1947, Husa enjoyed twofold triumph: the completion of his diploma at the Academy of Musical Arts,
and the premiere of his Sinfonietta (1945) by the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra. The piece was such a success
that it was selected by the Czech Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1948 as the winner of its annual prize.

The year 1948 was an ironic one for Husa: It was a year of accolades and the year in which the marriage of his
sister brought him back to Czechoslovakia, but it was also the year when he was exiled from his native land. He
and his music were banned from that moment until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989. When his mother,
Bozena Husová née Dongresová, died in 1955, Husa's family refrained from informing him of the news for fear
that he would come to her funeral and be arrested by the Communist authorities. Husa and his music were not
welcome in the Czech Republic until 1989, when the Communist regime fell from power. Husa, for the first time
since 1948, returned to his native land in 1990. On 13 February of that year, in Smetana Hall in Prague, he led the
Czech premiere of his monumental Music for Prague 1968. That performance was nationally televised.

Husa has written in virtually all genres; however, the tally of his chamber works—twenty-two pieces to
date—clearly indicates the emphasis he has consistently placed on small ensembles. Early chamber pieces include
his String Quartet, Op. 2 (1943), the Suite, Op. 5 (1945) for viola and piano, and the Sonatina, Op. 6 (1945) for
violin and piano. The Quartet, Op. wasPage 267 → played privately at the time, but Husa never reckoned it as his
“first” quartet. Presently, it is generally designated as the quartet “Nulty,” the Czech word for zero.

The work that Husa reckoned as his String Quartet No. 1 (1948),6 was dedicated to and premiered by the Smetana
Quartet at the Prague Music Festival on 23 May 1948. During the Darmstadt Festival of 1950, a student quartet
from the Darmstadt Institute performed the work. In that same year, the Quatuor Haydn presented the piece at
Brussels conference of the International Society for Contemporary Music. In 1951, the piece was heard both at the
Frankfurt Festival and at the renowned Donaueschingen Festival. Written during his student days in Paris while
working with Arthur Honegger and Nadia Boulanger, String Quartet No. 1 established Husa's reputation in
contemporary music. With it, he captured his first two prizes in composition: the Lili Boulanger Prize (1950) and
the Bilthoven Contemporary Music Festival Prize (1952).

Husa's growing reputation did not spare him from sentiments of remorse over the virtual loss of his homeland.
Perhaps this was the stimulus for his composition of Evocations de Slovaquie (1951), a trio for clarinet, viola, and
cello in three movements titled “Mountain,” “Night,” and “Dance.” This music makes it clear that most of Husa's
recollections of his native land were pleasant ones. The colorful, virtuosic clarinet solo and the dancelike rhythms
in the string parts of the opening movement are sheer energy and joie de vivre. The subdued second movement,
which features the strings, is contemplative. The final movement returns the spotlight to the clarinet part, which
was realized first by Maurice Cliquenois. Here, Husa places emphasis on short motifs, manipulating them with
additive rhythms and changing meters. At times, they are reiterated to the point that they become ostinato patterns.
According to Husa, this curious chamber ensemble was his approximation of Slovakian folk groups that he had
heard in that country.

The Parrenin Quartet commissioned Husa's String Quartet No. 2 (1953) and gave its premiere on 23 October 1954
at the Centre de Documentation sur la Musique in Paris. On 28 April 1958, the Walden Quartet gave the U.S.
premiere of the piece at Cornell University's Festival of Contemporary Arts. Quartet No. 2 is divided into three
movements of almost equal length. The outer movements open with Adagio passages, in both cases commencing
with high strings rhetorically introducing sparse, angular lines that evade tonal centers but also eschew twelve-
note constructive features. Noteworthy, too, are the varied and interestingly juxtaposed timbres involving
variously conventional arco bowing, pizzicato, sul ponticello,Page 268 → and other striking sonorities. The
intervallic content of the Adagios plays a larger role in movement construction; thus, the angular intervals heard at
the opening of the first movement appear in imitative contrapuntal texture about two-thirds through the
movement. The central Lento assai shares the character of these Adagios, but now in a greatly prolonged context.
The writing for the strings is idiomatic and tremendously diverse. Rhythmic motifs and recurring pitch-class sets
give the piece a sense of unity and musical logic. The balanced design of the three movements gives the whole
composition an appealing architectonic shape. Finally, Husa assessed accurately the capacity of mid-twentieth-
century audiences to listen to music such as this: It is long enough to provide musical depth, but the piece
concludes before it overwhelms—about eighteen minutes.

One of Husa's most popular chamber pieces is the Elégie et rondeau for saxophone and piano. The German
saxophonist Sigurd M. Rascher commissioned a solo saxophone work from Husa in 1958. The composer decided
to use Elégie (1957), originally a piano solo written in memory of his mother, and arrange it for saxophone and
piano. According to Husa, the mood of Elégie is similar both to the books of elegiac poetry by the existentialist
poet Rainer Maria von Rilke (1875-1926) as well as much of the elegiac poetry of ancient Greece.7 Rascher
presented the premiere of this version at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, on 12 June 1960.
The distinctive feature of Rascher's playing was his facility in the altissimo register (i.e., any note above F2); Husa
exploited this facility in the climax of the Elégie, which occurs roughly two-thirds through the piece (or,
approximately at the Golden Ratio).

The rondeau was composed later, as Husa wished to add a contrasting movement that was light and nimble. This
movement commences with both instruments quietly playing isolated rhythmic and melodic cells. As the
movement progresses, these cells gradually coalesce to form intricate, virtuosic passages. Similarly, the harmonies
“expand from simple sounds such as single notes and diads to chords that become more complicated.”8 Rascher
gave the premiere of the combined pieces Elégie et rondeau in London at Wigmore Hall on 12 December 1960.9
Husa's only other score for saxophone and piano is “Postcard from Home” (1994), a free treatment of two
melodies, “Echo in the Mountains” and “Homeland, Goodbye,” in Husa's Twelve Moravian Songs (1956).
“Postcard” was written for John Sampen, who gave the premiere.

When the Parrenin Quartet toured the United States in 1959, they included Husa's Second String Quartet among
their repertoire. It was at one of their concerts at the University of Chicago that George Sopkin, cellist of Page 269
→the Fine Arts Quartet, heard the piece. He prevailed upon his colleagues to take Husa's quartet into their
repertoire. In 1967, the Fine Arts Foundation of Chicago provided funds for the Fine Arts Quartet to commission a
new work. They chose Karel Husa. The work he wrote is his String Quartet No. 3. The piece is dodecaphonic, but
the application of the procedure is liberal. Octave doublings, microtonal writing, and passages written in a free,
pan-tonal style pervade the score.

The choreographer Dennis Nahat conceived of a ballet set to String Quartet No. 3 during a performance of the
piece in New York City. Titled Ontogeny, the balletic interpretation depicts the conception of a human being. The
Royal Swedish Ballet's premiere of Nahat's version on 29 November 1970 was a success, as was a subsequent
production in Cleveland, where it has been performed on a regular basis. Nahat eventually won an award in 1986
for Ontogeny.

String Quartet No. 3 received many accolades. Among the admirers were the composers William Schuman,
Samuel Adler, and Otto Luening. Without Husa's knowledge, the Fine Arts Quartet nominated the piece for a
Pulitzer Prize. When the selection committee called the Husa household with the decision, the composer's wife,
Simone, thought the call was solicitation. She indicated that they were “not interested in winning any prizes.” The
committee then called Husa at his Ithaca College office, and, after an explanation, Husa gladly accepted the
award.

In 1968, Husa composed his Divertimento for brass quintet. This medium, for two trumpets, horn, trombone, and
tuba or bass trombone, is a relative newcomer to the standard chamber ensembles thus far discussed in this book.
The decisive first step toward the modern brass quintet was the formation of the New York Brass Ensemble in
1954. Two of its members, Robert Nagel (trumpet) and Harvey Phillips (tuba) organized the New York Brass
Quintet. Arnold Fromme, also a member of the New York Brass Ensemble at one time, organized the American
Brass Quintet in 1960; he chose to use bass trombone instead of tuba. As a consequence of their pioneering work,
major contributions to the repertoire for this ensemble have been made by composers including Gunther Schuller
(1961, 1993), Vincent Persichetti (1968), Elliott Carter (1974; bass trombone), Jacob Druckman (Other Voices,
1976), Peter Maxwell Davies (1981; Two Motets, 1982; Pole Star, 1982), Leslie Bassett (1988; tuba), Ned Rorem
(Diversions, 1989; tuba), Leonard Bernstein (Dance Suite, 1990; optional percussion) and, of course, Karel Husa.

Husa's Divertimento, for two B-flat trumpets, horn in F, trombone, and tuba, consists of four movements:
Overture, Scherzo, Song, and SlovakDance.Page 270 → These pieces are actually twice reworked selections from
his Eight Czech Duets (1955) for piano four hands; they had first been arranged as the Divertimento (1958) for
brass ensemble and percussion. Their style is reminiscent of Bartók. Highly rhythmic passages dominate in the
first, second, and fourth movements. The plaintive and melancholy Song (titled “Evening” in the original, piano
version) makes extensive use of various types of mutes. Polytonal passages add a degree of dissonance; however,
these tend to be amusing and almost humorous. The Slovak Dance, a continuous accelerando with changing
meters, is the longest and most interesting movement of the four.

The far more ambitious Landscapes for brass quintet (trumpets in C—with first also playing piccolo
trumpet—horn, trombone, tuba) is a three-movement blockbuster that was commissioned by and dedicated to the
Western Brass Quintet for an American Bicentennial celebration. They played the premiere in Kalamazoo,
Michigan, on 17 October 1977. Although the movement titles, “Northern Woods,” “Northern Lakes,” and
“Voyageurs,” were added after the completion of the piece, they illuminate Husa's visions of America as it might
have been viewed for the first time by explorers. The use of French for the title of the final movement reminds us
that the first explorers of the Great Lakes region and Canada were French. This movement, according to Husa, is
“one continuous and progressive crescendo.” The second movement, like the Song of the Divertimento, makes
extensive use of mutes, now coupled with microtonal inflections of pitches, slides, and glissandos.

It is remarkable that this relatively new medium had reached such levels of sophistication within approximately a
quarter of a century. Landscapes is a staggering accomplishment not only because of the novelty of the ensemble,
but also because it is hard to imagine how a composer who is not himself a brass player could possibly have
managed to acquire such an intimate and intricate understanding of how these instruments work. Commenting on
the piece, one reviewer noted:

Because of all of the special effects…one cannot resist the temptation to compare the work with
Bartók string quartets, which stretched the coloristic possibilities of that ensemble years ago. Indeed
this work first strikes the player as a veritable compendium of the special effects possible on brasses.
Many of these effects may at first seem gimmicky, but, as with Bartók string quartets, when the whole
effect is heard, the result is unique and convincing…. It is unfailingly well-received by audiences of
all ages.10

Page 271 →

As part of its thirtieth-anniversary celebration, the Koussevitzky Foundation commissioned Husa's Sonata for
Violin and Piano. On 31 March 1974, Ani Kavafian (violin) and Richard Goode (piano) gave the first
performance at New York's Alice Tully Hall. In response to the premiere, John Rockwell wrote in the New York
Times:

What Mr. Husa has done is combine many of the most fascinating techniques of string and piano
writing of recent years into the context of a highly virtuosic display piece of the old school. The work
hardly sounds like a 19th-century sonata, but its coloristic ingenuity and expressivity suggest one all
the same. Occasionally one felt that Mr. Husa might have cut the piece here and there. But the
overflowing abundance of his ideas made most of it seem more than worthwhile.11

In the prefatory notes, Husa discusses how the events he has witnessed, “continuous wars, senseless destruction of
nature, killing of animals…man's incredible accomplishments in space,” all contributed to the piece. Interesting
sonorities in the piece include quarter tones on the violin and plucking of the piano strings.

Recollections (1982) and Five Poems (1994) are substantial contributions to the repertoire for woodwind quintet,
the former also including piano. Both are about twenty minutes' duration. Recollections marked the 200th
anniversary of Dutch-American diplomatic relations. The combination of woodwind quintet and piano has seldom
been used—Francis Poulenc's Sextet (1939), is one example. The premiere of this six-movement composition on
28 October at Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress took place with three other premieres of pieces
commissioned for the occasion: the Concerto da camera for violin, piano, and winds, Op. 60 (1982) by the
American James Cohn (b. 1928); “And They Shall Reign Forever,” for mezzo-soprano, clarinet, French horn,
piano, and percussion (1982) by the Dutch composer Ton de Leeuv (1926-1996); and the Divertimento for violin,
piano, winds, and double bass (1982) by de Leeuv's student Tristan Keuris (1946-1996).

The Koussevitzky Foundation commissioned the Five Poems. Each of the movements was inspired in some way
by birds. Husa has always been inspired by nature, particularly while he lived at his vacation home on Cayuga
Lake. He also had easy access to the Ornithology Lab of Cornell University—unlike Messiaen, who twice came to
Ithaca for the sole purpose of visiting that facility. The movements are “Walking Birds,” “Happy Bird,”
“Lamenting Bird with a Dead Bird,” “Fighting Birds,” “Birds Flying High.” The Quintet of the Americas
presented the premiere on 10 February 1995 at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Page 272 →

Husa's Sonata a tre was written specifically for the Verdehr Trio: Walter Verdehr (violin), Elsa Ludwig-Verdehr
(clarinet), and Gary Kirkpatrick (piano). For them, Husa composed the Sonata a tre as a “program ender”
displaying virtuosic potentials of each of the instruments. The first movement features the violin (“With
Intensity”), the second, piano (“With Sensitivity”), and the third, clarinet (“With Velocity”). Sonata a tre was
premiered in Hong Kong on 23 March 1982.

Husa's Variations (1984) for piano quartet are a major contribution to contemporary chamber music. They were
commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts on behalf of a consortium of three chamber ensembles: the
Atlanta Virtuosi, the Rowe Quartet, and the New England Piano Quartette. The Atlanta Virtuosi gave the first
performance on 20 May 1984 with premieres by the other two ensembles on 15 July 1984 and 23 January 1985,
respectively.

Husa worked on the piece from the summer of 1983 until spring of the following year. The twenty-seven pages of
sketches show many interesting features, including the working out of various compositional cells, some of which
combine to form twelve-tone sets. These sets are not used pervasively, as in classic dodecaphonic composition;
nevertheless, the configurations of the cells show a fascination with pitches bounded within intervals not
exceeding a major third and arranged as successive whole tones, half steps plus whole steps, and successive
semitones. These sonorities provide the “theme” of Husa's variations, which are not at all variations on a fixed
melodic idea in the traditional sense. As the composer notes in his prefatory remarks, “The work explores…the
alternations of sounds, intervals, chords, and forms in permutations, mirroring, and other techniques.
Combinations of bell-like sounds are applied throughout the different sections and always slightly modified”;
thus, a cell in what we might call “closed position” may subsequently appear in a pointillistic spacing with its
tones dispersed across several octaves. These cells are varied in rhythm, dynamics, articulation, and sonority.

The sketches show other interesting compositional premises too: One page is labeled “Study in Unison,” another,
“Elegiac Litany.” Although Husa did not employ either of these titles in the final piece, their thumbprints remain.
The “Study in Unison”—possibly inspired by the “Intermède” of Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du
temps—turned out to be a somewhat different piece. In Husa's realisation of this compositional premise, a single,
expansive, and rhythmically energetic line is broken up (hocket style) into trichordal segments flung among the
four participating instruments (at the point marked Prestissimo at rehearsal “C”). The litany corresponds to
thePage 273 → Moderato molto section at rehearsal “M,” where the composer plays with chromatic expansions of
the trichordal cells. The variations contain a further unifying factor, specifically, a four-note groupetto with which
the piece opens. These tones—sounded in the manner of grace notes in most cases—pop up here and there in
slightly modified form throughout the work. In this respect, the piece invokes the cyclic compositional manner of
nineteenth-century Romantic music as cultivated by Wagner, Liszt, and others. The concluding measures of the
work remind us of Bartók, on the one hand, with the trichordal cells moving in contrary motion, and Wagner, on
the other, with the concluding recollection of the grupetto leading to a final, abysmal statement of the trichord C-
sharp, B, A (using the A that is the lowest available pitch on the conventional piano keyboard).

Husa's Variations for piano quartet are one of his most intricate and fascinating conceptions. They are not what
would be called “easy listening”; however, they are characteristic of chamber music since the late nineteenth-
century in their nuance, complexity, and delicacy. Those willing to go beyond the initial hearing will be well
rewarded for their efforts.

Husa's String Quartet No. 4, Poems (1989) features six movements titled “Bells,” “Sunlight,” “Darkness,” “Hope,
” “Wild Birds,” and “Freedom,” all of which combine to produce what the composer Earl George (1924-1994)
called a “tour de force of colorful sound production.”12 Even though there is no direct correlation with any known
poem, the Quartet does reflect on themes that have interested Husa throughout his career. For example, “Bells”
can be understood as relating to Music for Prague 1968, where on of the musical motifs was inspired by the
tolling of Prague's many bell towers. “Wild Birds,” a cheerful movement, speaks to Husa's fascination with nature.
Composed in Ithaca, New York, the piece was premiered at the International Jan¡cek Music Festival in Brno,
Czechoslovakia, on 12 October 1991.
Page 274 →

FIFTEEN
Benchmarks: Chamber Music Masterpieces since circa 1920
The expense and logistical challenges involved with rehearsing large ensembles as well as the diversity and
novelty of many musical styles cultivated since 1900 have been powerful stimuli for the composition of chamber
music. Because tone color has assumed greater importance in music since the time of Debussy, many of these
chamber works have unique or distinctively modified instrumentations. Other factors, such as polycultural
synthesis, advances in electronic and other technological devices, philosophies, and religious beliefs, have played
a role in shaping chamber music composed during approximately the last seventy-five years. This chapter will
present a sampling of some of the most important of these works.

IGOR STRAVINSKY'S OCTET (1923)

In the course of his career, Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) first cultivated a late-Romantic, Russian nationalist style,
then, beginning in 1919, a neoclassical style, and finally, from 1951 onward, a style based on serial permutations
of sets. The Octet (1923) for flute, clarinet, and pairs of bassoons, trumpets (C and A), and trombones (tenor and
bass) came into being at the juncture of Stravinsky's Russian and neoclassical style periods.

All three movements of the Octet are predicated on Classical pattern forms: The opening Sinfonia is designed as a
sonata form in E-flat with a secondary tonal center of D. Like many late eighteenth-century sonatas, Page 275 →it
begins with a slow introduction (Lento). The arrival of the main theme (Allegro moderato) is highlighted by
drastic changes in meter (from triple to duple), texture (from independent lines to unison tutti), and dynamics
(from piano to forte). The development section and ultimate return of the main theme in E-flat are distinctively
profiled as well.1 The second movement (Andantino) is an octatonic waltz theme with five variations centered on
D. This movement was Stravinsky's first use of variation technique. His preference here is for strict variations that
preserve the original melody intact; however, there is one novel feature: The first variation (labeled A) returns
twice, always at the same tonal level and in essentially identical form. The result is a movement combining
variation technique and rondo form. For the finale, Stravinsky writes a five-section design in which the odd-
numbered components are centered on C and the even-numbered ones are of ambivalent tonality. Whereas the
majority of the previous music was self-consciously neo-Baroque in its textures and motor rhythms, the final, brief
return to C is colored by the syncopations and harmonies of pop music, especially jazz.

Stravinsky's neoclassicism has been criticized by many, including Serge Prokofiev, but his combination in the
Octet of Classical forms, Baroque textures, and Russian octatonicism—which even dictates the succession of the
movements' tonal centers: E-flat, D, and C—is extraordinarily subtle and effective.2 The composer conducted the
first performance at the Paris Opera on 18 October 1923. It was his first appearance of many on the podium.

Stravinsky's other important chamber works are his five-movement suite for violin and piano called Duo
concertante (1932) and the Septet (1953) for clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano, violin, viola, and cello. Both exhibit
the same deft synthesis of elements drawn from various historical styles with aggressively modern techniques.
Though it was originally a ballet with orchestra, Pulcinella exists in three chamber versions—all by Stravinsky.
The earliest of these (1925) is the five-movement Suite for Violin and Piano. For Gregor Piatagorsky, Stravinsky
arranged five movements for cello and piano to make the Suite Italienne (1932), and in the following year, he
arranged six movements—also called Suite Italienne—for the violinist Samuel Dushkin.

EDGARD VARÈSE'S Octandre (1923)

According to Milton Babbitt, Octandre (1923) is “probably Varèse's best known and most widely performed
ensemble work.”3 This is surprising inPage 276 → view of its uncommon instrumentation: “Octandrous” flowers
are those having eight stamens; correspondingly, Varèse's composition is scored for eight instruments: flute
(piccolo), clarinet (E-flat clarinet), oboe, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, and double bass. Perhaps the success
of the piece rests in its remarkably concise melodic premise—successive chromatic tones of a tetrachord—and the
inventive deployment of these limited resources. In stating the successive half steps of the tetrachord, Varèse
displaces the second, thereby establishing a secondary motif consisting of a whole step followed by a half step.
The first motif is an all-combinatorial tetrachord; the second spans the interval of a minor third, which, when
projected to form a diminished seventh chord, forms the basis of another all-combinatorial tetrachord. Although
Varèse does not pursue the possibilities of these tetrachords in a systematic way, he does use them to give form
and cohesion to the individual movements and, by thematic recall, to the cycle of three.

Throughout the piece, the single tone displaced to create the trichordal motif virtually becomes a third motif.
Varèse uses reiterated single tones not only in each of the three movements, but in every single tempo segment
within the movements. Note, too, the isolated tone is dispersed to every possible register and instrument
(including piccolo and E-flat clarinet) in the course of the piece. This compositional feature clarifies one important
principle in the music of Varèse: The traditional presumption of “octave equivalence must be ruled out,…for
events in one octave occur in a place fundamentally different from events in any other octave. Thus the property
of pitch class disappears.”4 Whenever these reiterated tones appear, Varèse varies not only their register, but also
their durations. This technique reaches its climax in the penultimate section of the third movement (Subitement
très vif et nerveux).

This intricate process of motivic derivation and thematic cross referencing is supported by Varèse's highly colorful
instrumentation. For example, the first movement's opening motto appears transposed by a tritone at the
conclusion of that movement; in both instances, it is played by the oboe. These motivic webs leave virtually no
room for doubling of pitches; the single instance of doubling appears in measure 29. Intricate, too, are Varèse's
metrical designs, which include 1½/4, 2½/4, 3½/4, and 4½/4. These meters could easily be converted to
conventional meters (i.e., 3/8, 5/8, 7/8, 9/8); however, such a conversion would change the number and position of
stresses within each measure.

The first performance of Octandre was conducted by Robert Schmitz on 13 January 1924 at the Vanderbilt
Theatre, New York. It was published in Page 277 →that same year by J. Curwen & Sons.5 That performance was
sponsored by the International Composers' Guild, an organization founded in 1921 by Varèse and Carlos Salzedo
for the purpose of providing performance venues for contemporary music.

BARTÓK'S SONATA FOR TWO PIANOS AND PERCUSSION (1937)

A commission in May 1937 from the Basel chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music led
Bartók to compose this three-movement sonata for two pianos and two percussionists.6 It begins with a substantial
introduction (Assai lento) that anticipates the second of the two themes (theme 1A and 1B) in the opening
statement of the ensuing sonata movement (Allegro). A contrasting subject makes its appearance before the
restatement of theme iB at the conclusion of the exposition. The central development section makes extensive use
of ostinatos and thematic inversion. In the recapitulation, imitative counterpoint creates what seems more like a
second development section, which, in turn, ends with the recollection of the first subject. The second movement
(Lento ma non troppo) is a simple A-B-A song form, and the finale combines elements of sonata and rondo.

The first performance of the Sonata was given in Basel on 16 January 1938 with Bartók and his wife Ditta
Pñsztory as pianists, Fritz Schiesser and Philipp RÜhling as percussionists, and Paul Sacher, conductor. 7 Of the
seven percussion instruments—three tympani, bass drum, cymbals, tamtam, side drum with snares, side drum
without snares, and xylophone—all save the xylophone and tympani are played by each percussionist at some
point. The Sonata is tonal throughout, with the three movements focused on C, F, and C respectively; however,
symmetrical structures, reiteration of identical motifs, and modal inflections lead to a greatly expanded tonal
palate. Bartók's characteristic rhythmic energy is apparent even in slow passages.

The ensemble of Bartók's Sonata became the starting point of many derivative works including Linea (1973), for
two pianists, vibraphone, and marimba, by Luciano Berio (1925-2003); Music for a Summer Evening
(Makrokosmos III; 1974) for two amplified pianos and percussion, by George Crumb (b. 1929); and Sur incises
(1996/98), by Pierre Boulez (b. 1925), a forty-minute roller-coaster ride for three pianos, three harps, and three
percussionists, who play vibraphones, marimba, steel drums, crotales, glockenspiel, timpani, and tubular bells.

Page 278 →

Berio's Linea shows influences of minimalism in its strictly limited pitch collections. Adjacent chromatic tones are
separated into disjunct groups heard variously in approximates closed or open positions. As the work unfolds, is a
continuous piece comprised of twelve short segments: The first, fourth, and sixth are labeled Manège I, II, III; the
second and eighth are designated Entrée I, II; the third, fifth, seventh, and eleventh are Ensemble I, II, III, IV; the
ninth and tenth are Coda I and II; Berio calls the twelfth and last segment Notturno. The sections called “manège”
(Fr. trick, little game) lack meter signatures and bar lines; the two “entrée” segments are relaxed and fluid. In
addition, they exhibit more transparent and spacious textures than the other movements. The four “ensembles”
exhibit the greatest rhythmic activity and textural density. The two “codas” extract distinctive aspects of the
contrasting types of segments heard during the course of the work. The Notturno provides a tranquil epilogue to
the whole set.

Berio is most particular about the use of sustaining pedal by vibraphone and both pianos, and he typically changes
the resonance of repeated motifs as a form of variation. The piano parts sometimes include chords, but
surprisingly long stretches of the piece use the instrument as a monophonic voice. Berio's use of understated
dynamics softens the impact of the feverish rhythmic activity and textural density of the piece. This approach was
probably inspired by the Prestissimo con sordino movement of the Fourth String Quartet of Bartók, a composer
Berio very much admired.8

Crumb's Music for a Summer Evening is in five movements: “Nocturnal Sounds,” “Wanderer-Fantasy,” “The
Advent,” “Myth,” and “Music of the Starry Night.” Its percussion battery is an extensive one including
vibraphone, glockenspiel, glass wind chimes, bamboo wind chimes, tubular bells, Japanese temple bells, crotales,
bell tree, claves, maracas, sleighbells, wood blocks, temple blocks, large and small triangles, log drum, bass drum,
bongo drums, and large tympano, large and small tamtams, large and small suspended cymbals, sizzle cymbals,
detached fiat cymbal, thunder sheet, sistrum, and Tibetan prayer stones. Both the percussionists and pianists play
additional instruments, including slide whistles, jug, alto recorder, guiro (scraper), thumb piano, and quijada
(rattle).

According to the composer, the first, third, and fifth movements are the weightiest, while the second and fourth act
as interludes. The first is headed with a quotation from the twentieth-century poet Salvatore Quasimodo, the third
with one from the seventeenth-century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal, and the fifth with one from
the turn-of-the-century poet Rainer Maria von Rilke. Pattern forms are not used, but the Page 279 →elaboration of
motivic cells provides coherence. The finale includes conspicuous quotations (clearly labeled in the score) from
Bach's Fugue in D-sharp minor from book 2 of the Well-Tempered Clavier. The music as well as the poetic
references suggest a soundscape for a dream. The first performance was given by pianists Gilbert Kalisch and
James Freeman and percussionists Raymond des Roches and Richard Fitz at Swarthmore College on 30 March
1974.

Sur incises is a vast elaboration of a nine-page piece for piano solo entitled “Incises” (1994), which was composed
for the 1994 Umberto Micheli Piano Competition in Milan. At that competition, a group of judges chaired by
Luciano Berio selected Gianluca Cascioli's performance as the winning interpretation of “Incises.” The piece, of
course, is virtuosic and exploits the characteristic sonorities and capabilities of the piano. Cascades of notes
tumble over the entire range of the instrument (A4, the lowest note on the instrument, is heard in the opening
gesture); reiterated tones, frequently combined with expanding and contracting dynamic levels; wedges formed by
expanding or contracting intervals and registers are another essential element.

In Sur incises, Boulez uses the three harps and percussion battery to accentuate the characteristic yet tremendously
diverse sounds produced by a modern, acoustic piano. In this respect, Boulez's intentions were clearly aligned
with those of Bartók in his score of the Sonata for two pianos and percussion. The connection between the two
works is confirmed by the fact that Boulez dedicated the score of Sur incises to Paul Sacher on the occasion of his
ninetieth birthday. The score won the University of Louisville's Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in
2001. The Paul Sacher Stiftung, in Basel, Switzerland, is the repository for the archives of many leading
contemporary composers including Boulez.

MESSIAEN AND THE Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1941)

No greater practical constraints can be imagined than those that a composer would have faced in a Nazi
concentration camp during the 1940s. It was precisely in such circumstances that Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)
composed his chamber-music classic, the Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the end of time; 1941).

Messiaen had been conscripted to service, but owing to his poor eyesight, he was assigned to a post at Verdun as a
paramedic. In May 1940, the Germans invaded. After a futile flight to Nancy, he was captured and interned at
Görlitz, in Silesia, in a Nazi camp known as compound VIIIA. Page 280 →There his fellow prisoners included the
violinist Jean Lee Boulaire, the clarinetist Henri Akoka, and the cellist Etienne Pasquier.9 The only cello available
was missing one string. Boulaire and Akoka had been allowed to keep their instruments when they entered the
camp. For these two and the handicapped cellist, Messiaen first wrote what is now the fourth movement,
“Intermède.” The remainder of the quartet (save for the third movement, “Abîme des oiseaux”) includes
piano—the one that became available to the prisoner-musicians was an upright piano in disrepair. The first
performance was given on 15 January 1941 with the composer at the piano assisted by his three friends. For
Messiaen, it was the musical experience of his life. Approximately five thousand inmates listened with a
concentration and perception that the composer experienced neither before nor afterward.

At the head of the score, Messiaen wrote verses 1 through 7 of chapter 10 of the Revelation of St. John the Divine:

I saw an angel full of strength descending from the sky, clad with a cloud and having a rainbow over
his head. His face was like the sun, his feet like columns of fire. He set his right foot on the sea, his
left foot on the earth and, standing on the sea and on the earth, he raised his hand to the sky and swore
by Him who lives in the centuries of centuries, saying: “There shall be no more Time, but on the day
of the seventh Angel's trumpet the mystery of God shall be accomplished.”10

The relationship between Messiaen's personal religious views and his music is a complex one. He once stated:

The first idea that I wished to express—and the most important—is the existence of the truths of the
Catholic faith. I've the good fortune to be a Catholic; I was born a believer, and it happens that the
Scriptures struck me even as a child. So a number of my works are intended to bring out the
theological truths of the Catholic faith. That is the first aspect of my work, the noblest and, doubtless,
the most useful and valuable; perhaps the only one which I won't regret at the hour of my death.11

Messiaen's theological views pervade the complex musical idiom of the quartet. He reminds us that “most of the
arts are unsuited to the expression of religious truth: only music, the most immaterial of all, comes closest to it.”12
Here, irony confronts us since Messiaen effaces this “immateriality” by the programmatic titles for each of the
quartet's eight movements; furthermore, each title is accompanied by a detailed prose explanation.

Page 281 →

That a concentration camp could not negate the presence of God in all things and in all places, found a natural
parallel in the music of birds and the sounds of drops of water that could be heard even within the barbed-wire
enclosures of the camp. In order to appreciate these sounds in the quartet and other works, it is helpful to note
Messiaen's observation that:

The phenomenon of nature is…beautiful and calming, and, for me, ornithological work is not only an
element of consolation in my researches into musical aesthetics, but also a factor of health. It's
 perhaps thanks to this work that I've been able to resist the misfortunes and complications of life.13

The irony here is twofold: Messiaen not only attaches material meanings to immaterial music by invoking nature's
sounds, but in so doing, he acknowledges the power of time. The composer noted that “all of God's creations are
enclosed in Time, and Time is one of God's strangest creatures because it is totally opposed to Him who is Eternal
by nature, to Him who is without beginning, end, or succession.”14

Messiaen suggests the ending of time through musical materials. Sometimes he constructs themes based upon
non-retrogradable rhythms (i.e., palindromic patterns in which time past and time future are identical). Repetitious
figures and rhythmic cycles are employed—especially in the first movement—to provide coherence. Though the
thirteenth-century Indian theorist Sârngadeva presented such cycles in his treatise Sangîtaratnakâra (Ocean of
music), they are not unique to his theory; similar rhythmic patterns appear in western Europe's rhythmic modes as
well as in isorhythmic motets of the Ars nova. In the first movement, Messiaen uses panisorhythmic structures
combining dissimilar cycles of durations and sonorities. The various instrumental parts thus unfold in a manner
analogous to planets moving through their unique orbits. Paul Griffiths has estimated that the cycles as they
appear at the beginning of the piece would not come into alignment again for approximately two hours.15 The
seventeen-duration plan of the opening piano part may serve as an example.

Litanies, which have played an important part in Christian liturgies since the fifth century, also influenced
Messiaen's score. Their repetitious structure induces a sort of spiritual intoxication in which one becomes
oblivious to the world and to time. Messiaen's use of recurrence—particularly the links between the second and
seventh movements, and the fifth and eighth—enhances this sense of timelessness. Finally, the eight-movement
plan is significant. “This ‘Quartet' consists of eight movements. Page 282 →Why? Seven is the perfect number,
the creation of 6 days sanctified by the holy Sabbath; the 7th day of repose extends into eternity and becomes the
8th day of indefectible light, of unalterable peace.”

In Quatuor, Messiaen used previously composed music for the fifth movement, “Louange à l'éternité de Jéasus”
(Paean to the eternity of Jesus), and the last movement, “Louange à l'immortalité de Jésus” (Paean to the
immortality of Jesus). The former is drawn from the Fête des belles eaux (Celebration of beautiful water; 1937),
scored for six ondes martenot, the latter from the Diptyque (1930) for organ solo. In addition to Quatuor,
Messiaen wrote only two chamber works: Merle noir (Blackbird; 1951 for flute and piano), and the Pièce (1991)
for piano quintet.

LUCIANO BERIO, CHAMBER MUSIC (1953) AND PIERRE BOULEZ, LE MARTEAU

SANS MAÎTRE (1954)
When traditional poetry is set to music, the intelligibility of the text almost always assumes a primary role, thereby
impeding—if not virtually precluding—the equality of elements that is the life's blood of chamber music
ensembles. Late nineteenth-century French symbolist poets began using words for their sonorous qualities as well
as for their “meanings.” The liberation of wordsPage 283 → from syntax and connotation was accomplished by
the Italian Futurist poets of the early twentieth century, who advanced the concept of parole in liberta (liberated
words). The works of James Joyce (1882-1941) exhibit similar tendencies, which led in his later works to a host of
technical innovations including interior monologue (i.e., stream of consciousness), invented words, puns, double
meanings, symbolic parallels drawn from a wide variety of sources, and other methods of presentation that range
from the obscure to the unintelligible. These trends have changed the way musicians interested in vocal chamber
music look at texts.

Pierre Boulez (b. 1925) has addressed these issues in his essay “Sound and Word,” where he remarks: “When one
envisages the ‘putting to music' of the poem…a series of questions relating to declamation, to prosody is posed. Is
one going to sing the poem, ‘recite' it, speak it? All the vocal means enter into play, and upon these diverse
particularities of emission depend the transmission and…intelligibility of the text.”16 A poem is an autonomous
work of art with inherent sonorities, rhythms, and intervals; thus, as Boulez candidly states, singing a poem results
in the “destruction of the poem.”17 Operating on the premise that a poem's inherent sonorities are irreconcilable
with those that the poem inspires in the mind of the composer, Boulez brushes aside the issue of intelligibility: “If
you wish to ‘understand' the text, then read it.”18

Berio's Chamber Music takes its title from an early set of Joyce's poems published in London by Charles Elkin
Mathews in 1907. Berio selected three poems, “Strings in the earth and air,” “All day I hear the noise of waters,”
and “Winds of May,” and set them for mezzo-soprano, clarinet, cello, and harp. His approach to the voice at that
time was influenced by two factors: the singing of Cathy Berberian, whom he had married in 1950, and the music
of Luigi Dallapiccola, with whom Berio studied during the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood in 1952.

Dallapiccola, best known for his one-act opera Il prigioniero (1949), was the leading serialist in Italy after World
War II. In Chamber Music, Berio uses serial techniques as well; however, his tone row is designed “to furnish
lyrical opportunities rather than to expunge tonal and triadic echoes.”19

For the outer two poems, Berio used the opening lines of the poems as titles. For the central song, he has gone
farther into the poetic text to find his title as well as the defining feature of the song's vocal line:

All day I hear the noise of water

Making moan,

Sad as the sea-bird is, when going

Page 284 →

Forth alone,

He hears the winds cry to the waters'

Monotone.

The drab recitation of the text is masterfully counterbalanced by the brilliant instrumental writing, which amounts
to a tone poem in miniature.

For Le marteau sans maître, Boulez chose three short poems by the French surrealist poet René Char
(1907-1988), which appeared in his 1934 publication by the same title. The texts are as follows:20

L'ARTISANAT FURIEUX

la roulette rouge au bord du clou

et cadavre dans le panier

et chevaux de labours dans le fer à cheval

je rêve la tête sur la pointe de mon

couteau le Pérou

BEL ÉDIFICE ET LES PRESSENTIMENTS

j' écoute marcher dans mes jambes

la mer morte vagues par-dessus tête

 enfant la jetée-promenade sauvage

homme l'ilussion imitée

des yeus purs dans le bois

cherchent et pleurant la tête habitable

BOURREAUX DE SOLITUDE

le pas s'et eloigné, le marcheur s'est tu

sur le cadran de l'limitation

le balancier lance sa charge de granit

réflexe

The score exists in two editions, the first, published in 1954 and used for the premiere at the 1955 Baden-Baden
Festival on 18 June 1955, and a revised version of 1957, which bears a dedication to Hans Rosbaud, who
conducted the premiere. The earlier version has seven movements rather than nine, and their sequence is different
from that in the final version. Both are scored for alto and six instrumentalists playing alto flute (i.e., in G), guitar,
vibraphone, xylorimba, percussion, and viola. “All these instruments have a medium pitch register, [which is] an
important consideration since they are to accompany a contralto voice…. The nature of the instrumentation
supports the nature of the voice in both tessitura and colour.” The composer notes further that the instrumentation
represents a “chain linking each instrument to the next by a feature common to both…: voice-flute, breath;Page
285 → flute-viola, monody; viola-guitar, plucked strings; guitar-vibraphone, long resonance; vibraphone-
xylophone, struck bars of metal or wood.”21 In using these instruments, Boulez has taken care to vary the
ensemble from one piece to another. This, he says is a “deliberate, direct reference to [Schoenberg's] Pierrot
lunaire.”22 Each of the vocal movements became the kernel for a cycle of movements: “l'artisanat furieux”
inspired a prelude and a postlude; “bourreaux de solitude” provoked three commentaries; and “bel édifice et les
pressentiments” suggested to Boulez the idea of a variation. In arranging the sequence of these purely instrumental
movements that followed in the aftermath of the vocal movements, Boulez made no attempt to keep the cycles
together; instead, he interspersed items from the various cycles in one larger cycle of increasing complexity.
According to the composer, “It's only the last piece [“bel édifice et les pressentiments”—double] that, to some
extent, offers the solution, the key to this labyrinth.”23 The most important process that takes place in this final
movement is the equalization of vocal and instrumental elements. During the preceding movements, the voice
periodically emerged to declaim the words of the poems, but in the final movement, the voice is used to hum
rather than to utter words. The constantly changing timbres, textures, and dynamics result in a piece that can be
appreciated for its sonorous beauty if not for its cognitive intricacies.

LEON KIRCHNER, STRING QUARTET NO. 3 (1966)

The highly evocative scores of Leon Kirchner (1919-2009) have been recognized repeatedly as major
accomplishments in contemporary idioms. His First and Second string quartets (1949, 1958) both won awards, but
his Third Quartet (1966) earned him the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 1967.

In addition to the three previously mentioned string quartets, Kirchner's principal chamber works include the Duo
(1947) for violin and piano, the Sonata concertante (1952) for violin and piano, the First Piano Trio (1954), and
the Second Piano Trio (1993). Additional chamber pieces include Two Duos (1988) and Triptych (1988) for violin
and cello. The latter consists of the Two Duos with a central movement for cello solo dating from 1986.

Arnold Schoenberg, Ernst Bloch, and Roger Sessions were among Kirchner's mentors. Given this highly
diversified background, Kirchner has eschewed reliance upon any single contemporary ideology; instead, he has
drawn resources from each of these composers' idioms as well as from his personal experiences as a pianist and
conductor. His music is totally chromatic, but that chromaticism may sound at one moment lush and Romantic,
Page 286 → in the manner of Richard Strauss or Gustav Mahler, or more akin to the free pan-tonal works of
Schoenberg or Berg in the next. He tends to write single, continuous movements; nevertheless, lyrical adagios,
energetic scherzos, and other familiar types of movements can be found embedded within the larger designs.
Kirchner has no interest in being a radical. His preference for traditional chamber music genres is evidence of that;
however, like Schoenberg, he has freely broadened traditional approaches to these genres and their concomitant
ensembles when it suited his expressive goals to do so.

A case in point is his Third String Quartet, which combines this most traditional of chamber-music ensembles
with electronically synthesized sounds that Kirchner created on the Buchla synthesizer.24 From 1954 until 1961,
Kirchner was on the faculty of Mills College in Oakland, California. It was there that he became interested in
electronic music. At the same time in San Francisco, Donald Buchla was developing technological support for
composers. Buchla had refined his synthesizers to enable electronic strands to be integrated with live performance.
While Kirchner admits that electronics have given musicians new insights into the creation and application of
musical materials, he nevertheless finds claims of the potential of electronic media greatly exaggerated. He is
more interested in “the combinations of instruments with electronic sounds and filters. Instrumental qualities are
then somehow reflected, extended, and adumbrated in interesting ways. Human involvement is, of course,
essential; for the problems of composition remain the primary factors. I set out to produce a meaningful and
musical confrontation between new electronic sounds and those of the traditional string quartet.”25

The Third String Quartet is a continuous piece that lasts a bit under twenty minutes; nevertheless, it consists of
eleven contrasting sections (so numbered by the composer), much like an ancient canzona. These seem variously
to be introductory, expository, transitional, or developmental. At some points, Kirchner writes exclusively for the
acoustical ensemble; in other passages, it dominates; in others, it functions in dialogue with the electronic sounds,
or with the electronic sounds as accompaniment. Though prominent in many segments of the piece, especially the
opening of the “Scenario: Tape Cadenza,” the synthesized sounds never become the primary sonic events.

The notation of the score is ingenious. Traditional notation is used for the quartet, and freely created graphics,
including lines, ovals, circles, sawtooth shapes, and so on, represent the electronic sounds. Page 287 →Arrows
and lines drawn through the image of a loudspeaker indicate where the electronic tape should be activated and
deactivated; consequently, no two performances will ever be identical.

Other composers have written pieces that combine acoustical instruments with electronic elements. Noteworthy
among these are Musica su due dimensioni (1952) for flute, cymbals, and electronically altered sounds, by Bruno
Maderna (1920-1973), which is probably the earliest such work; Delizie contente che l'alme beate (1973), a
marvelous fantasia for wind quintet and electronic sounds by Jacob Druckman (1928-1996) based on a Baroque
aria by Francesco Cavalli; the series of Synchronisms—all with electronics—by Mario Davidovsky (b. 1934),
including No. 1 (1963) for flute, No. 2 (1964) for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, No. 3 (1965) for cello, No. 5 (1969)
for percussion ensemble, No. 6 (1970) for piano, No. 8 (1974) for woodwind quintet, No. 9 (1988) for violin, and
No. 10 (1992) for guitar. As If (1982), for violin, viola, cello, and electronics, by Paul Lansky (b. 1944), consists
of four movements titled respectively “In Preparation,” “At a Distance,” “In Practice,” and “In Distinction.”
Impressive, too, is his score Values of Time (1987) for wind quintet, string quartet, and electronic sounds. Lansky
has also written purely acoustical chamber works including two string quartets (1967, 1971) and Crossworks
(1975) for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano.

STEVE REICH, Violin Phase (1967)

In exactly the same year that Kirchner won the Pulitzer for his electronic quartet, Steve Reich (b. 1937) set out on
a closely related but essentially different path: By using first one, then two, and finally three prerecorded tracks of
the musical patterns that constitute Violin Phase (1967), Reich creates a constantly changing superimposition of
motifs, rhythms, and textures. Though highly repetitious, the music is never the same. A further irony of the piece
has to do with its status as chamber music. While its texture consists largely of four totally independent parts, all
four of the parts are performed by a single violinist.

Violin Phase is a landmark in the history of the largely American style known as minimalism. In his later works,
Reich created the same effects without the use of prerecorded material. His Octet (1979) for flute/piccolo, clarinet
/ bass clarinet, two pianos, two violins, viola, and cello is a more colorful realization of the same concept.

Minimalism has been significantly transformed in the works of John Adams (b. 1947), whose principal chamber
works to date include Shaker Loops (1978; rev. 1982), John's Book of Alleged Dances (1994)—eleven fancifully
titled Page 288 →movements for string quartet, six of which include electronically altered sounds of a prepared
piano, and Road Movies (1995) for violin and piano. While retaining repetitious patterns within the context of ever
changing relationships, Adams tends to color his musical modules with chromatic elements. In some instances, the
resulting harmonies are strikingly Romantic. The rhythms of the Alleged Dances are drawn from a wide variety of
musics: In addition to classical items, such as the pavane, the habanera, and scherzando polymeters in 12/8 time,
Adams gets toes tapping with energetic hoedowns, the perpetual motion of Western-swing fiddle music, and the
syncopations of turn-of-the-century ragtime. Some of the movements are less concerned with appealing to a large
audience, and they contain very imaginative and refined writing. “Alligator Escalator,” which includes no
electronics or prerecorded sounds, is an excellent example.

GEORGE CRUMB, Black Angels (1970)

In the formation of his style, George Crumb (b. 1924) has embraced diverse historical influences as well as
elements of folk music from the hills of his native West Virginia. Bartók, Webern, Ives, Messiaen, and Berio are
important, but he attributes the most profound influence to Debussy. Crumb's fascination with folk instruments
has led him to discover fantastic uses of color and timbre. He does not shun pop, rock, or jazz, each of which
contributes something to his style. He is equally delighted to hear unfamiliar sounds in Asian, African, South
American, and other nonWestern repertoires. Electronic music fascinates him, and he considers Mario
Davidovsky “the most elegant of all the electronic composers whose music I know.”26 Crumb's forays into the
electronic world, however, are limited to amplification.

His invented techniques for playing traditional acoustical instruments often produce what sounds like electronic
music, but without the technological and logistical impediments of electronics. He routinely expects
instrumentalists to use their voices too, and he asks variously for hissing, howling, shouting, screaming,
whispering, and so on. In the opening of Vox balene (Voice of the whale; 1971), the flutist must sing into the
instrument and play it simultaneously to approximate the actual humpback whale songs of which Crumb had
heard tape recordings. In Black Angels (1970) for electric string quartet with maracas, tam-tam, and water-tuned
goblets, his players are required to count in a quasi-ritualistic way in German, French, Russian, Hungarian,
Japanese, and Swahili. In both of thesePage 289 → pieces, music is complemented by drama. In Vox balœnœ, the
three players (flute, cello, piano) perform bathed in aquamarine lighting and in masks.

Symbolism pervades all of Crumb's music, but is especially apparent in Black Angels, which is subtitled “Thirteen
Images from the Dark Land.” The score is dated “Friday 13 March 1970 (in tempore belli).” This was the height
of the Vietnam War. The quartet may therefore be viewed as a parable exploring the fall from grace in the first
movement, “Departure,” spiritual emptiness in the second, “Absence,” and redemption in the third, “Return.”
Numerology (often imperceptible without the score) informs the structure of the piece, and the numbers seven and
thirteen affect the choice of intervals, durations, motivic patterns, and other details.

The sonic resources of Black Angels include a conventional string quartet but with amplification. Extended
techniques, such as stopping the strings with thimble-covered fingers, bowing on the wrong side of the strings, and
so on. frequently result in quasi-electronic sounds. References to tonal music include paraphrases of the Dies irae,
Schubert's Death and the Maiden, and an original sarabande in a neotonal style. The trill is used as a motif to
represent the fallen angel—this via Tartini's famous “Devil's Trill Sonata.”

CHOU WEN-CHUNG, Echoes from the Gorge (1989)

Echoes from the Gorge is not the first Western music for ensembles consisting only of percussion. The fifth and
sixth Rítmicas (1930) of the Afro-Cuban composer Amadeo Roldan (1900-1939) and Ionisation (1931) of Edgard
Varése (1883-1965) were the earliest such pieces.27 John Cage (1912-1992) began experimenting with ensembles
of this sort in his percussion Quartet (1935), which does not specify instrumentation. Cage welcomed
serendipitous scorings including pots, pans, and other kitchen ware, garbage cans, pieces of furniture, and so on.
In his later pieces entitled First Construction in Metal (1939), Second Construction (1940), and Third
Construction (1941), unconventional percussion items are specified. Lou Harrison (b. 1917) also combined
classical and “junk” instruments, such as brake drums and iron tubs. His three-movement Suite (1942) for
percussion is representative not only of this trend, but also of a technique generally known as metric modulation.
In the seven-movement suite Los Dioses Aztecas, Op. 107 (Aztec gods; 1959), Gardner Read (1913-2005)
specifies both pitched and unpitched percussion with exactitude. This massive work of about a half-hour's
duration requires six percussionists and no fewer Page 290 →than sixty percussion instruments. An extraordinary
number of percussion pieces have been written by William Kraft (b. 1923), whose academic training was
complemented by practical experience he gained as percussionist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1955 to
1981. In 1958, he completed Momentum, requiring eight players, and his Suite, which requires four. Kraft's series
of pieces called Encounters (eleven composed between 1975 and 1998) are for various instruments, invariably
with percussion. Encounters I, “Soliloquy,” (1975) is for a single percussionist with tape; others are for trumpet,
trombone, saxophone, English horn, violin, cello, and so forth. Some Encounters—Nos. VI and VII—are for
percussion ensembles: roto-toms and percussion quartet in the former, two percussionists playing various
instruments in the latter. Kraft writes for four percussionists in Theme and Variations (1956) and the Quartet
(1988). The former piece, composed exactly ten years after Benjamin Britten's score of Young Person's Guide to
the Orchestra, employs an organizational scheme no doubt derived from that piece: Kraft's “Theme” is followed
by four variations, the first is scored for cymbals, snare drum, bass drum, and tympani; the second for idiophones
of metal and wood; the third for membraphones; and the fourth draws freely from all departments in a fascinating
mix and match of timbres and pitches.

Multiculturalism provides the foundation for the music of the remarkable Chinese-American composer Chou
Wen-chung (b. 1923). Chou heard percussion ensembles of Chinese instruments as a young man before
immigrating to the United States in the fall of 1946, but by the time he began Echoes from the Gorge in 1970, he
was already intimately familiar with Varése's Ionisation; hence, his fantastically colorful scoring of represents an
amalgamation of Chinese and Western timbres and techniques.28 The instrumentation calls for a vast array of
percussion including concert castanets, clave, cowbells, bongos, congas, low snare drum, metal chimes, sizzle
cymbal, finger bell, gong (small, high, and low), Chinese cymbal (small and large cup), crash cymbal (high and
low), tamtam (high and low), Chinese tom-tom (high and low), timbales, bass drum (high and low), parade drum
(high and low), ride cymbal (high and low), gong (high and low), wood blocks, tom-tom, high snare drum,
bamboo chimes, small cymbal, metal sheet, and temple blocks.29

Traditional Chinese qin music is rich in variations of sonorities accomplished by specific finger movements. In
Echoes from the Gorge, Chou achieves similar effects by using a wide variety of contact locations and sticks—for
example, he may instruct that the instrument be struck on the cup, at the rim, near the back edge, or even rolling
gradually from one location toPage 291 → another.30 Some of the instruments listed here appear in more than one
of the four groups; hence, the composer has been able to highlight either similar or different timbres within the
groups. In fact, the role of transethnicity in Echoes goes far beyond its instrumentation. Chinese philosophy,
aesthetics, and arts also played a role in Chou's conception.

Echoes occupied Chou for almost twenty years. He commenced work in the summer of 1970 when he was Guest
Composition Teacher and Composer-in-Residence at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. He resumed
composition there in the following summer. Owing to the demands made upon him as chairman of the Music
Division at Columbia University, a position that he held from 1969 to 1989, he put the score aside. Further time
constraints came with Chou's founding of the Center for U.S.-China Arts Exchange in 1978. Finally, in 1988, he
returned to the score and completed it in 1989. The New Music Consort gave the first performance at the Lila
Acheson Wallace Auditorium in New York City on 27 April, 1989.31
At the heart of the piece are its six rhythmic modes, which are based on permutations of the durational ratios 3:2:1
and their aggregates. These ratios were suggested to Chou by the writings of Lao-tzu, the semimythical founder of
Taoism.32 Stanza 42 of the Tao-te ching reads as follows:

The number one of the Way was born.

A diad from this monad formed.

The diad next a triad made;

The triad bred the myriad,

Each holding yang

And held by yin,

Whose powers' balanced interaction

Brings all ten thousand to fruition.33

In his poems, Lao-tzu imbues the number one with cosmological significance. “The termyi, ‘One,' a single
horizontal stroke, represents the dividing line between the unmanifest and the manifest, between Dao and the ten
thousand. On one side of the line life emerges in spontaneous profusion (min-min, helter-skelter). At life's end all
things cross back to the unmanifest state, to negation.”34 This single horizontal stroke can also form the central
line of a trigram, the figures used in the classic Confucian text known as the I ching (book of changes). Contrary
to popular Western beliefs, this volume is not merely a book of divination; rather, it is predicated upon three
philosophical premises: the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and the
inevitability of change. These concepts—along Page 292 →with the trigrams and hexagrams formed by the
combination of trigrams—became the cornerstones of Chou's “variable modes.” The first of Chou's scores to
employ the variable modes is Metaphors (1961) for wind orchestra. By the time he composed Echoes, Chou had
discovered that these variable modes could be applied to parameters other than organizing pitch; they could also
serve to regulate elements such as duration, timbre, register, and so on. In this respect, Chou's expansion of the
function of his variable modes is analogous to the expansion of dodecaphonic principles within the context of
“total” or “integral” serialism implied in some works by Anton Webern and subsequently elucidated in detail in
compositions by Milton Babbitt (1916-2011), Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono (1924-1990), Karlheinz Stockhausen
(1928-2007), and others.

The roles of yin and yang also play an important part in Chou's Echoes. Initially, yin and yang were understood as
“natural, equal forces interacting in a balanced manner.”35 Subsequently [the concept of] yin and yang polarity
was applied more broadly. Yang might represent “heaven, large kingdoms, sovereigns, males, and so on, while yin
is associated with earth, small kingdoms, vassals, females, and so on.”36 In the trigrams of the I ching, yang are
represented by an unbroken line, and yin by the line broken into halves. From bottom to top, the three lines in a
trigram correspond to earth, humanity, and heaven. The maximum number of different trigrams is eight. If we
represent yin (a broken line) by 0 and yang (a solid line) by 1, the possibilities become the following: 000/001/010
/011/100/101/110/111. When trigrams are paired to create hexagrams, the total number possible is sixty-four.
Combining the cosmological Taoist numerology associated with one, then two, then three (or, the durational ratios
3:2:1 or rhythmic motifs consisting of one, two, or three elements) with the yin-yang lines of the trigrams, Chou
represents yin and yang by various groupings of six elements. Since the note value used in the 3:2:1 series may be
a quarter (i.e., dotted half, half, quarter), and eight (dotted quarter, quarter, eighth), or any other, arbitrarily
selected note value, the traditional compositional procedures of augmentation and diminution are inherent in
Chou's theoretical plan.37

The “Prelude: Exploring the Modes” presents six rhythmic motifs that, in permutations and transformations,
provide the durational foundations of the score. The Prelude is followed by twelve continuous sections, each with
a citation of some evocative image familiar from classical Chinese landscape paintings: “Raindrops on Bamboo
Leaves,” “Echoes from the Gorge,” “Autumn Pond,” “Clear Moon,” “Shadows in the Ravine,” “Old Tree by the
Cold Spring,” “Sonorous Stones,” “Droplets down the Rocks,” “Drifting Clouds,”Page 293 → “Rolling Pearls,”
“Peaks and Cascades,” and “Falling Rocks and Flying Spray.”38

Yin is reflected in the series 3 + 2 + 1 and 3 + 1 + 2, whereas 5 + 1 and 4 + 2 represent yang. “A rhythmic mode is
thus formed by combining a 3- and a 2-group unit in either order.”39 A trigram of 001 type might therefore
become the following:

This trigram might then be paired with its reciprocal trigram, 100 (yin-yang polarity), within a hexagram. In the
design of Echoes, Chou favors nine hexagrams that—in the I ching—are numbered as follows: 11, 12, 17, 18, 42,
53, 54, 63, 64. The adjacent hexagrams (i.e., 11, 12; 17, 18; 53, 54; 63, 64) happen also to be retrogrades of each
other: 111000, 000111; 100110, 011001; 001011, 110100; 101010, 010101.40 The traditional compositional
principles of retrograde and inversion are thus inherent in the constitution of the various hexagrams.

Although the score includes precise metronomic indications and time signatures, the temporal progress of the
piece is not based on meter; moreover, the structural elements briefly surveyed here provide coherence not only
within individual sections of the piece, but throughout the superstructure of the entire piece.

The role of transethnicism in Echoes—and in all of Chou's other works—goes far beyond the simple combination
of Asian and Western instruments, or using a Chinese folk tune with a pentatonic harmonization. His synthesis of
Asian and Western elements is both pervasive and organic. Soon after leaving New England Conservatory in
1948, he relocated to New York City, where he composed Three Folk Songs (1950) for harp and flute. Chou
subsequently composed his Suite (1951) for harp and wind quintet, and the very adventurous score Cursive (1963)
for flute and piano. Because the flute is capable of minute fluctuations in pitch, varying speeds of vibrato,
microtonal trills, and so forth, Chou felt it necessary to endow the piano with some comparable timbral variety. In
certain passages, the strings must be prepared with wooden slabs, metal slabs, and metal chains. He suggests
bookshelf brackets, rulers, triangular scales, ball-chains, and the like. At other times, the pianist plays inside the
instrument, variously stopping, tapping, or plucking the strings, or playing glissandos. Cursive contains important
structural elements that relate directly to Chou's system of variable modes used in his mature works, particularly
the use of augmented triads whose thirds are motivically elaborated variously as successive whole tones or as a
minor third plus a semitone.Page 294 → Despite the origin of these motifs within compact intervallic boundaries,
the motifs are often stated in widely separated registers; thus, abstract concepts of pitch (i.e., without reference to
that pitch's location within a precise octave) do not apply in this piece. Accordingly, Chou devised what he calls a
“Continuous Intensity Scale,” which associates specific dynamics with particular pitches and registers of each of
the two instruments.

Ancient Chinese qin music inspired Yü Ko (1965) for violin, alto flute, English horn, bass clarinet, trombone, bass
trombone, piano, and two percussionists. This zither-type instrument (usually with seven silk strings) has a subtle
sound that may be likened to that of the Western clavichord: A person speaking at a normal dynamic level will
essentially drown the instrument out. Like the clavichord, the qin is capable of great nuance in inflection and
dynamics. Because its strings are plucked with the fingers (rather than struck, as are the strings of a clavichord),
the method of plucking (e.g., with the fleshy part of the fingertip, with the fingernail, with a bit of each, at some
particular point close or far from the bridge, etc.) shapes the resulting sound. Chou uses an actual qin melody, the
“Fisherman's Song,” in Yü Ko. Because of the musical structure of the tune, Chou's harmonic and melodic style
are heavily pentatonic.

Additional chamber works of interest include Ceremonial (1968) for three trumpets and three trombones; and Yün
(1969) for flute, clarinet in B-flat, bassoon, horn, trumpet in B-flat, trombone, two percussionists, and piano. Yün,
largely because of Chou's commitments at Columbia University and with the music of his mentor, Edgard Varése,
was followed by a long silence that was finally broken with his completion of Echoes from the Gorge. Since then,
Chou has been consistently prolific.
The fascinating score of Windswept Peaks (1990) is a double duo for violin and cello in dialogue with the paired
clarinet and piano. Although it is performed as a continuum, it has clearly discernable sections with verbal clues
indicating the affection of the music. At the time Chou was working on the piece, he was powerfully influenced
by the Tiananmen Square episode and its aftermath in June 1989. To an extent, the dialectic between the two duos
of Windswept Peaks is an allegory relating to the traditional role of literati (^À, “wenren”) in dialogue with
society in general. As he notes in the preface to the score, “The image of windswept peaks suggest the unadorned
beauty of inner strength.” In this and subsequent scores, Chou's system of variable modes is fully realized and
pervasively implemented. Rhythmic structures are similarly the outgrowth of his scheme of rhythmic modes. The
relationships of rhythmic designs, pitch patterns, dynamics, Page 295 →and timbres are regulated by yin/yang
correspondences traditionally associated in Chinese astronomy and philosophy with woman/ moon in
complementation with man/sun respectively. In designing the piece, Chou has used Asian premises in a manner
that clearly parallels the integral serial pieces of Milton Babbitt, Pierre Boulez, and others.

Chou's two string quartets, Clouds (1996) and Streams (2002), were written for and premiered by the Brentano
Quartet. String Quartet No. 1, dedicated to the composer's wife, the pianists Yi-an née Chang, is structured in five
distinct movements. It was Chou's intention to pay homage to two musical traditions, that of the Western string
quartet, the traditional movements of which can easily be perceived, and qin music. Although qin repertoire is
soloistic, it is relevant to chamber music because, as Chou points out, qin music was typically composed by the
qin player specifically for particular guests invited for a particular musical occasion; thus, there was an intimacy, a
meeting of minds, that is characteristic of chamber music. The first movement of Clouds—the longest and most
varied in tempo, texture, and mood of all—seems almost as though Chou had composed it to be a quartet complete
unto itself.41 In fact, it is an expansive metamorphosis in which the processes of exposition and development are
merged.42 The second movement, Leggierezza, has very much the character of a traditional scherzo. The
Larghetto nostalgico, the third movement, is one of the highlights of string-quartet repertoire. Strings are with
mutes throughout. Dynamics are subdued. Melodic movement is generally limited to a single voice, but that
melodic material is distributed quite evenly among the four instruments. That Chou's earliest linguistic experience
was with a toned language is clearly reflected in the careful shaping of each tone in the melodic line. The fourth
movement, Presto con fuoco, keeps the same pulse for every measure even though the measures cycle constantly
through combinations of three to eight beats. Each statement of the cycle is a continuous accelerando. Chou
cycles through the series six times. This unique isometric ostinato recalls something of the character of the
isorhythmic motets of the Ars nova and the basso ostinato structures of Baroque music; however, this particular
application of those concepts is novel. The finale is unique in Chou's works since it is a condensed recapitulation,
often verbatim or with slight modifications such as octave transpositions, of the first movement. Chou could easily
have continued the process of transformation that he initiated in the first movement. His choice to harken back to a
distant memory, recalling it essentially but not exactly, intensifies the nostalgic and essentially Romantic aesthetic
of this music.

Chou's Second String Quartet, Streams, began as a commission from the BrentanoPage 296 → Quartet for a work
responding to Bach's Art of the Fugue. The resulting composition was his Contrapunctus Variabilis (2002), which
the Brentano players premiered at Middlebury College on 8 November 2002. This movement begins with an
astonishing Introduction in which rich, tutti chords quite like those in his String Quartet No. 1 form the aggressive,
ying character of the opening. This is immediately countered by a yin passage played sotto voce and at a much
slower tempo. The ensuing movement is a quadruple fugue using all of the permutations of subject and answer
that one would expect in a traditional fugue. Chou—like Beethoven with the four-note motif of the Galitzin
quartets—became fascinated with the possibilities of his subject and expanded it with three additional movements.
The second movement, an elegy written in memory of the composer's brother, Wen-tsing, recalls the Larghetto
nostalgico of the First Quartet both in its precise shaping of individual tones within the melodic lines and in the
use of muted strings. The third movement, Allegretto grazioso, takes its point of departure from the Presto con
fuoco of String Quartet No. 1. It is a double canon that constantly accelerates during its sixty-two-measure
duration. Chou likens the movement to his experiences during the compositional process in which “severe
recurrent pain…would intensify mercilessly to an unbearable climax when it would suddenly subside, very much
in the manner of the arpeggio that abruptly concludes the movement.”43 The last movement, “Episodes and Coda,
” makes extensive use of double stops in recapitulating three expositions of the fugue. The Coda is a varied and
condensed restatement of the Introduction to the first movement.

Twilight Colors (2007) is ingeniously conceived to get three trios of contrasting timbres out of six players and
scored for flute / alto flute, oboe / English horn, clarinet / bass clarinet, and violin, viola, and cello. The timbres
are an essential element of this piece, which owes a debt not only to seventeenth-century Chinese brush painting
but also to the Luminist painters of the Hudson River School. The four movements and coda are headed with
suggestive titles: “A Thread of Light,” “Colors of Dawn,” “In the Mist,” Mountain Peaks Rising,” and “Their
Silhouettes Neither Parallel nor Contrary.”

His most recent composition, Eternal Pine (2009), was originally conceived for an ensemble of traditional Korean
instruments. Soon after its premiere, Chou made extensive revisions to the piece, shortened it, and rescored it for a
Western instrumentation consisting of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion (one player: bass drum, four tom-
toms, two dome cymbals, two crash cymbals, cncerro, and bell), and piano.
Page 297 →

Table of Chamber Pieces According to Ensemble Size

Note: Basso continuo is counted as a single performer. In repertoire using electronics, the person operating the
electronic equipment is counted as a performer.

TWO PERFORMERS
Adams, John

Road Movies, violin, piano

Arutiunian, Alexander

Poem-Sonata, violin, piano

Retro-Sonata, viola, piano

Suite: clarinet, violin, piano

Bach, Johann Sebastian

Sonata: viola da Gamba, basso continuo, G major, S. 1027

Bartók, Béla

Duos: forty-four, two violins

Rhapsodies: violin, piano, No. 1 (1928); No. 2 (1928)

Sonatas: violin, piano, No. 1 (1921); No. 2 (1922)

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Sonatas: cello, piano, Op. 5

Sonata: violin, piano, Op. 96

Berg, Alban

Four pieces: clarinet, piano, Op. 5

Brahms, Johannes

Sonata: cello, piano, F major, Op. 99

Sonatas: clarinet, piano, F minor, Op. 120, No. 1; E-flat major, Op. 120, No. 2

Sonatas: violin, piano, FAE Scherzo; G major, Op. 78; A major, Op. 100; D minor, Op. 108

Variations on a Theme of Haydn, Op. 56b

Page 298 →

Britten, Benjamin
Lachrymae: Reflections on a Song of John Dowland, Op. 48, viola. Piano

Sonata: cello, piano, C, Op. 65

Temporal Variations, oboe, piano

Chou Wen-chung

Cursive, flute, piano

Three Folk Songs, harp, flute

Davidovsky, Mario

Synchronisms: flute, electronics, No. 1; cello, electronics, No. 3; percussion, electronics, No. 5; piano, electronics,
No. 6; violin, electronics, No. 9; guitar, electronics, No. 10

Debussy, Claude

En blanc et noir, 2 pianos

Sonata: cello, piano

Sonata: violin, piano

Denisov, Edison

Es ist genug, viola, piano

Sonata: alto saxophone, piano (1970)

Sonata: clarinet, piano (1993)

Sonata: flute, piano (1960)

Sonata: violin, piano (1963)

Suite: cello, piano (1961)

Fauré, Gabriel

Sonata: cello, piano, D major, Op. 109; G major, Op. 117

Sonata: violin, piano, A major, Op. 13; E major, Op. 108

Foote, Arthur

Sonata: violin, piano, G minor

Franck, César

Sonata: violin (flute), piano, A major

Grieg, Edvard

Sonata: cello, piano, A minor, Op. 36

Sonatas: violin, piano, F major, Op. 8; G major, Op. 13; C minor, Op. 45
Gubaidulina, Sophia

In croce, cello, organ or cello, bayan

Pantomime, double bass, piano

Der Seiltänzer, violin, piano

Sonata: double bass, piano

Sonata: Detto I, organ, percussion

Sonata: Rejoice!, violin, cello

Guérin, Emmanuel

Duos faciles, Op. 1 (violins)

Hindemith, Paul

Sonata: alto saxophone, piano (E-flat, 1943)

Sonata: bassoon, piano (1938)

Sonata: cello, piano, Op. 11, No. 3; Kleine Sonata (1942)

Sonata: clarinet, piano (1939)

Sonata: double bass, piano (1949)

Sonata: English horn, piano (1941)

Page 299 →

Sonata: four horns (1952)

Sonata: oboe, piano (1938)

Sonata: trombone, piano (1941)

Sonata: trumpet, piano (1939)

Sonata: tuba, piano (1955)

Sonata: viola d'amore, piano, Op. 25, No. 2 (1922)

Sonatas: horn, piano (F, 1939; E-flat, 1943)

Sonatas: viola, piano, Op. 11, No. 4; Op. 25, No. 4

Sonatas: violin, piano, Op. 11, Nos. 1, 2; in E (1935); in C (1939)

Husa, Karel

Eight Czech Duets, piano, four hands

Élégie et rondeau, saxophone, piano

“Postcard from Home,” saxophone, piano

Sonata: violin, piano (1973)

Twelve Moravian Songs, voice, piano

Ives, Charles

“Decoration Day,” violin, piano

Sonatas: violin, piano, No. 1; No. 2; No. 3; No. 4

Kirchner, Leon

Duo: violin, piano

Duos: violin, cello

Kódaly, Zoltán

Duo: violin, cello, Op. 12

Sonata: cello, piano, Op. 4

Sonatina: cello, piano (1909)

Lutoslawski, Witold

Epitaph, oboe, piano

Grave, cello, piano

Partita: violin, piano

Mendelssohn, Felix

Sonatas: cello, piano, B-flat, Op. 45; D, Op. 58

Sonatas: violin, piano: F minor, Op. 4; C minor, viola, piano; E-flat clarinet, piano

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hensel, Fanny Cäcilie

Adagio: violin, piano, E major

Capriccio: cello, piano, A-flat major

Fantasia: cello, piano, G minor

Messiaen, Olivier

Merle noir, flute, piano

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Fugue, K. 426, piano 4 hands; see also K. 546, string quartet, double bass

Sonatas: violin, piano, K. 10, 59, 60, 296, 304, 305, 454, 526, 547
Nielsen, Carl

Canto serioso, horn, piano

Fantasistykker: clarinet, piano, G minor; oboe, piano, Op. 2

Sonata: violin, piano, G-minor (unpublished); No. 2, Op. 35

Page 300 →

Prokofiev, Serge

Sonata: flute, piano, Op. 94

Sonata: violin, piano, Op. 80

Sonata: cello, piano, Op. 119

Ravel, Maurice

Sonata: violin, cello

Sonata: violin, piano

Tzigane, violin, piano

Rheinberger, Joseph

Sonata: violin, piano, Op. 77, Op. 105

Sonata: cello, piano, Op. 92

Saint-Saëns, Camille

Sonata: bassoon, piano, G major, Op. 168

Sonatas: cello, piano, C minor, Op. 32; F major, Op. 123

Sonata: clarinet, piano, E-flat major, Op. 167

Sonata: oboe, piano D major, Op. 166

Sonatas: violin, piano, D major, Op. 75; E-flat major, Op. 102

Schnittke, Alfred

Sonata: cello, piano (1978)

Sonatas: violin, piano, No. 2 (1968); No. 3 (1994)

Stille Musik, violin, cello

Suite in Olden Style, violin, harpsichord or piano; rev. 1986, viola d'amore, harpsichord, vibraphone, marimba,
Glockenspiel, bells

Schoenberg (Schönberg), Arnold

Phantasy: violin, piano, Op. 47 (1949)

Schubert, Franz Peter

Fantasie: piano, 4 hands, F minor, Op. 103, D. 940

Grande marche funebre, piano 4 hands Op. 55, D. 859

Grande marche heroïque, piano 4 hands Op. 66, D. 885

Grandes marches, piano 4 hands Op. 40, D. 819

Marches characteristiques, piano 4 hands Op. 121, D. 886

Marches heroïques, piano 4 hands, Op. 27, D. 602

Marches militaires, piano 4 hands, Op. 51, D. 733

Polonaises: piano, 4 hands, Op. 61; D. 824; Op. 75, D. 599

Rondo: piano, 4 hands, A major, Op. 107, D 951

Sonatas: piano, 4 hands, B-flat major, Op. 30, D. 617; C major, Op. 140, D. 812

Variationen über ein Franzosisches Lied, Op. 10, D 624

Schumann, Robert

Adagio and Allegro in A-flat, horn, piano, Op. 70

Fantasiestücke: clarinet, piano, Op. 73

Five Pieces in Folk Style, cello, piano, Op. 102

Märchenbilder, piano, viola, Op. 113

Sonatas: violin, piano: A minor, Op. 105; D minor, Op. 121; A minor, Op. posth.

Three Romances, piano, oboe, Op. 94

Shebalin, Vissarion

Sonata: cello, piano, Op. 54, No. 3

Page 301 →

Sonata: viola, piano, Op. 51, No. 2

Sonata: violin, piano, Op. 51, No. 1

Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitriyevich

Sonata: cello, piano, D minor, Op. 40

Sonata: viola, piano, Op. 147

Sonata: violin, piano, Op. 134

Sibelius, Jean
Sonatina: E major, violin, piano, Op. 80

Spohr, Louis

Concertante: two violins, Op. 88

Duos: violins, Op. 3; Op. 9; Op. 39; Op. 48; Op. 67; Op. 148; Op. 150; Op. 153

Stravinsky, Igor

Duo concertante, violin, piano

Suite Italienne, cello, piano; violin, piano

Tartini, Giuseppe

“Devil's Trill Sonata”

Vaughan Williams, Ralph

Six Studies in English Folksong, cello (or violin, viola, clarinet), piano

Sonata: violin, piano, A minor (1954)

Webern, Anton

Four Pieces: violin, piano, Op. 7

Three Little Pieces: cello, piano, Op. 11

THREE PERFORMERS
Bach, Johann Sebastian

Sonata: two flutes, basso continuo, G major, S. 1039

Bartók, Béla

Contrasts, violin, clarinet, piano

Beach, Amy

Trio: piano, strings, A minor, Op. 150

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Trio: B-flat, clarinet, cello, piano, Op. 11

Trios: piano, Op. 1, Nos. 1-3; Op. 70, Nos. 1, 2; Op. 97 Archduke Trio

Trios: strings, Op. 3; Op. 9

Berio, Luciano

Linea, two pianists, vibraphone, marimba

Brahms, Johannes
Trio: piano, clarinet, cello, Op. 114

Trio: piano, violin, horn, E-flat major, Op. 40

Trios: piano, strings, B major, Op. 8; C major, Op. 87; C minor, Op. 101

Buxtehude, Dieterich

Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BuxWV 98, violin, soprano, basso continuo

Crumb, George

Vox balœnœ, flute, cello, piano, lighting, costumes

Page 302 →

Debussy, Claude

Sonata: flute, viola, harp

Trio: piano, strings (1880)

Denisov, Edison

Trio: oboe, cello, harpsichord

Dvo ák, Antonín

Trios: strings, F minor, Op. 65, B130; E minor, Op. 90, B166

Fauré, Gabriel

Trio: piano, strings, D major, Op. 120

Foote, Arthur

Trios: piano, strings, No. 1, C minor; No. 2, B

Franck, Cesar

Trios: piano, strings, Op. 1, Nos. 1-3; Op. 2

Friedrich Christian Ludwig, Prince of Prussia

Trios: A-flat major, piano, strings, Op. 2; E-flat major, Op. 3; E-flat major, Op. 10

Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich

Trio: clarinet, bassoon, piano/violin, cello, piano, Trio pathetique (1832)

Gubaidulina, Sophia

Garden of Joys and Sorrows, flute, viola, harp

Five Etudes: harp, double bass, percussion

Quasi hoquetus, viola, bassoon (or cello), piano

Trio: violin, viola, cello (1989)

Haydn, Franz Joseph

Trios: piano, strings, Hob. XV/6, XV/7, XV/8, XV/39, XV/41

Trios: strings, Hob. V/8, V/D6, V/E-flat 1, V/G 7, Op. 53

Hindemith, Paul

Trios: strings, 1924; 1933

Trio: string, wind (heckelphone/saxophone), piano, 1928

Husa, Karel

Evocations de Slovaquie, clarinet, viola, cello

Sonata a tre, clarinet, violin, piano

Ives, Charles

Largo, violin, clarinet, piano

Trio: piano, strings (1911; rev. 1915)

Kódaly, Zoltán

Serenade: two violins, viola, Op. 12

Ligeti, György

Trio: violin, horn, piano (1982)

Maderna, Bruno

Musica su due dimensioni, flute, cymbals, electronically altered sounds

Marschner, Heinrich

Trio: piano, strings, G minor, Op. 111

Mendelssohn, Felix

Konzertstücke: clarinet, basset horn, piano, Opp. 113, 114

Trios: piano, violin, viola, C minor; piano, strings, D minor, Op. 49; C minor, Op. 66

Page 303 →

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hensel, Fanny Cäcilie

Trio: piano, strings, D minor, Op. 11

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Trio: clarinet, viola, piano, E-flat, K. 498, Kegelstatt

Trios: piano, strings, K. 254, 496, 502, 542, 548, 564

Trio: strings, E-flat major, K. 563

Nielsen, Carl

Trio: piano, strings, G major (unpublished)

Penderecki, Krzysztof

Trio: violin, viola, cello (1991)

Rameau, Jean Philippe

Pieces de clavecin en concert: violin/flute, viol/cello, harpsichord (1741)

Ravel, Maurice

Trio: piano, strings, A minor

Rheinberger, Joseph

Trios: piano, strings, D minor, Op. 34 (1862/67); G major, Op. 112 (1878); B-flat major, Op. 121 (1880); F major,
Op. 191a (1898)

Saint-Saëns, Camille

Trios: piano, strings, F major, Op. 18; E minor, Op. 92

Schnittke, Alfred

Trio: violin, viola, cello (1985)

Suite in Olden Style, violin, harpsichord or piano; rev. 1986, viola d'amore, harpsichord, vibraphone, marimba,
Glockenspiel, bells

Schoenberg (Schönberg), Arnold

Trio: strings, Op. 45

Schubert, Franz Peter

Auf dem Strom, soprano, horn, piano, Op. 119, D. 943

Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, soprano, clarinet, piano, Op. 129, D. 965

Trios: piano, strings, B-flat, Op. 99, D. 898; E major, Op. 100, D. 929

Schumann, Robert

Fantasiestücke: piano, violin, cello, Op. 88

Märchenerzählungen, piano, viola, clarinet, Op. 132

Trios: piano, strings, D minor, Op. 63; F major, Op. 80; G minor, Op. 110

Shebalin, Vissarion
Trio: piano, strings, A, Op. 39

Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitriyevich

Trios: piano, strings, C minor, Op. 8; E minor, Op. 67

Smetana, Bed ich

Trio: piano, strings, G minor, Op. 15

Tschaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich

Trio: piano, strings, A minor, Op. 50

Ustvolskaya, Galina

Trio: clarinet, violin, piano (1949)

Vaughan Williams, Ralph

Six Studies in English Folksong, cello (or violin, viola, clarinet), piano

Page 304 →

Webern, Anton

Five canons: soprano, clarinet, bass clarinet, Op. 16 (1924)

Trio: violin, viola, cello, Op. 20 (1927)

Songs: soprano, clarinet, guitar, Op. 18 (1925)

Zemlinsky, Alexander

Trio: clarinet/violin, cello, piano, D minor, Op. 3 (1896)

FOUR PERFORMERS
Adams, John

John's Book of Alleged Dances, string quartet, electronically altered sounds

Bach, Johann Sebastian

Musikalisches Opfer, S. 1079, flute, violin, cello, basso continuo

Bartók, Béla

Quartets: strings, No. 1 (1909); No. 2 (1917); No. 3 (1927); No. 4 (1929); No. 5 (1934); No. 6 (1939)

Sonata: two pianos, percussion (2 players)

Beach, Amy

Quartet: strings, A minor, Op. 89

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Quartets, strings: Op. 18 Nos. 1-6; Op. 59, Nos. 1-3, Razumovsky Quartets; Op. 74, Harp Quartet; Op. 95,
Quartetto serioso; Op. 127; Op. 131; Op. 132; Op. 130; Op. 135

Berg, Alban

Quartets: strings, No. 1, Op. 3; No. 2, Lyric Suite

Berio, Luciano

Chamber Music, mezzo-soprano, clarinet, cello, harp

Brahms, Johannes

Quartet: piano, strings, G minor, Op. 25; A major, Op. 26; C minor, Op. 60

Quartets: strings, C minor, Op. 51, No. 1; A minor, Op. 51, No. 2; B-flat, Op. 67

Britten, Benjamin

Quartet: oboe, strings, Op. 2

Quartets: strings, Rhapsody (1929); Quartettino (1930); String Quartet in D (1931); Alla marcia (1933); Three
Divertimenti (1936); No. 1 D; No. 2 C; No. 3 E

Cage, John

Third Construction, 4 percussionists

Second Construction, 4 percussionists

Chadwick, George Whitefield

Quartets: stings, No. 1, G minor (1878); No. 2, C major (1879); No. 3, D (1885); No. 4, E minor; No. 5, D minor

Chou Wen-chung

Contrapunctus Variabilis, string quartet

Echoes from the Gorge, percussion, 4 players

Quartets: strings, No. 1, Clouds (1966); No. 2, Streams (2002)

Windswept Peaks, violin, cello, clarinet, piano

Page 305 →

Crumb, George

Black Angels, string quartet, maracas, tam-tam, water-tuned goblets, amplification

Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III; 1974), two amplified pianos, percussion, 2 players

Debussy, Claude

Quartet: strings, G minor, Op. 10

Denisov, Edison
“Diane dans le vent d'automne,” viola, piano, vibraphone, double bass

Quartet: flute, violin, viola, cello

Quartet: strings, No. 2

Dvorák, Antonín

Page 306 →

Quartets: strings, D minor, Op. 34, B75; E-flat, Op. 51, B92; F, Op. 96, B179, American Quartet; G major, Op.
106, B192; A-flat Quartet, Op. 105, B193

Fauré, Gabriel

Quartets: piano, strings, C major, Op. 15; G major, Op. 45

Quartet: strings, E major, Op. 121

Foote, Arthur

Quartet: piano, strings, C

Quartet: strings, No. 1. G minor; No. 2, E; No. 3, D

Franck, César

Quartet: strings, D major

Friedrich Christian Ludwig, Prince of Prussia

Andante with Variations, piano quartet, Op. 4

Quartets: piano, strings, E-flat major, Op. 5; F minor, Op. 6; E-flat major, Op. 10

Grieg, Edvard

Quartet: strings, G minor, Op. 27

Gubaidulina, Sophia

Quartets: strings, No. 1 (1971); No. 2 (1987); No. 3 (1987); No. 4 (1993)

Haydn, Franz Joseph

Quartets: strings, Op. 1, Op. 2, Op. 3 (spurious), Op. 9; Op. 17; Op. 20; Op. 33; Op. 50; Op. 51, Seven Last Words
of Christ on the Cross; Opp. 54, 55, 64, Tost Quartets; Opp. 71, 74, Apponyi Quartets; Op. 76, Erdödy Quartets;
Op. 77, Lobkowitz Quartets

Hindemith, Paul

Quartet: clarinet, violin, piano, cello (1938)

Quartets: strings, No. 1 (1915); No. 2 (1918); No. 3 (1920); No. 4 (1921); No. 5 (1923); No. 6 (1943); No. 7
(1945)

Husa, Karel
Quartet: Variations, piano, violin, viola, cello

Quartets: strings, Op. 2 (1943) “Nulty”; No. 1 (1948); No. 2 (1953); No. 3 (1967); No. 4, Poems (1989)

Ives, Charles

Prelude on “Eventide,” baritone/trombone, two violins, organ

Quartets: strings, No. 1 (1909); No. 2 (1915); Practice for String Quartet; Scherzo

Janá ek, Leoš

Quartets: No. 1, The Kreuzer Sonata; No. 2, Intimate Letters

Kirchner, Leon

Quartets: strings, No. 1 (1949); No. 2 (1958); No. 3 (1966)

Kódaly, Zoltán

Quartets: strings, No. 1, Op. 2 (1909); No. 2, Op. 10 (1918)

Kraft, William

Quartets: percussion, Theme and Variations (1956); Quartet (1988)

Lansky, Paul

As If, violin, viola, cello, electronics

Quartets: strings, No. 1 (1967); No. 2 (1971)

Ligeti, György

Quartet: strings, No. 1, Metamorphoses nocturnes; No. 2 (1968)

Lutoslawski, Witold

Quartet: strings, No. 1, (1964)

Mendelssohn, Felix

Quartets: piano, strings, Op. 1, C minor; Op. 2, F minor; Op. 3, B minor

Quartets: strings, E-flat, WoO; E-flat major, Op. 12; A-minor, Op. 13; D-major, Op. 44, no. 1; E-minor, Op. 44,
no. 2; E-flat major, Op. 44, no. 3; F-minor, Op. 80; E major, Op. 81

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy-Hensel, Fanny Cäcile

Quartet: piano, strings, A-flat (1823)

Messiaen, Olivier

Quatuor pour la fin du temps, clarinet, violin, cello, piano

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Quartets: flute, strings, D major, K. 285; G major, K. 285a; C major, K. 285b; A major, K. 298
Quartet: oboe, violin, viola, cello, F major, K. 368b

Quartets: strings, K. 80, 155-160, 168-173; Op. 10: K. 387, 421, 428, 458, 464, 465; K. 499, Hoffmeister Quartet;
K. 575, 589, 590, Prussian Quartets

Nielsen, Carl

Quartets: strings, F minor, Op. 5; G minor, Op. 13; E-flat, Op. 14; F major, Op. 44

Penderecki, Krzysztof

Quartet: clarinet, violin, viola, cello

Quartets: strings, No. 1 (1960); No. 2 (1968)

Prokofiev, Serge

Quartets: strings, B minor, No. 1, Op. 50 (1930); F major, No. 2, Op. 92 (1941)

Ravel, Maurice

Quartet: strings, F major

Reich, Steve

Violin Phase, 1 player, three recorded tracks

Rheinberger, Joseph

Quartets: strings, C minor, Op. 89; G minor, Op. 93; F major, Op. 147

Page 307 →

Rimsky-Korsakoff, Nikolai

String Quartet on Russian Themes

Saint-Saëns, Camille

Quartet: piano, strings, B-flat major, Op. 41

Quartets: strings, E minor, Op. 112; G minor, Op. 153

Scarlatti, Alessandro

Sonatas: Quattro sonate a quattro, F minor, C minor, G minor, D minor

Schnittke, Alfred

Quartets: strings, No. 1 (1966); No. 2 (1980); No. 3 (1983); No. 4 (1989)

Schoenberg (Schönberg), Arnold

Quartets: strings, D major (1897); Op. 7 (1905); Op. 10 (1908); Op. 30 (1927); Op. 37 (1936)

Schubert, Franz Peter

Quartets: strings: D. 18; D. 32; D. 36; D. 46; D. 68; D. 74; D. 94; D. 112; D. 173; D. 87; A minor, Op. 29, no. 1,
D. 804; D minor, Der Tod und das Mädchen (death and the maiden), D. 810; D. Fragment in C minor, D. 703; G
major, D. 887

Schumann, Robert

Quartets: piano, strings, C minor (1829); E-flat, Op. 47

Quartets: strings, Op. 41, Nos. 1-3 A minor, F major, A major

Schütz, Heinrich

“In te, Domine, speravi,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 259, alto, violin, bassoon, basso continuo

“Jubilate Deo omnis terra,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 262, bass, two recorders, basso continuo

Shebalin, Vissarion

Quartets: strings

Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitriyevich

Quartets: strings, No. 2, A major, Op. 68; No. 3, F major, Op. 73; No. 4, D major, Op. 83; No. 5, B-flat major, Op.
92; No. 8, C minor, Op. 110; No. 11, F minor, Op. 122; No. 12, D-flat major, Op. 133; No. 13, B-flat minor, Op.
138; No. 14, F-sharp major, Op. 142; No. 15, E-flat minor, Op. 144

Sibelius, Jean

Quartets: strings, A minor (1889); B-flat, Op. 4; D minor, Voces intimœ, Op. 56; Andante festivo

Smetana, Bedrich

Quartets: strings, No. 1 in E minor, “From My Life”; No. 2 in D major

Spohr, Louis

Quartets: strings, C major, Op. 29; Op. 45; Op. 58; A major, Op. 93; E-flat, Op. 152

Tschaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich

Quartets: strings, D major, Op. 11; F major, Op. 22; E-flat minor, Op. 30

Vaughan Williams, Ralph

Quartets: strings, G minor, No. 1; A minor, No. 2; Household Music

Webern, Anton

Five movements for string quartet, Op. 5 (1909)

Quartet: clarinet, tenor saxophone, violin, piano, Op. 22 (1930)

Page 308 →

Quartet: strings, Op. 28 (1938)

Six bagatelles for string quartet, Op. 9 (1913)

Three folksongs for soprano, clarinet, bass clarinet/violin, viola, Op. 17 (1925)

FIVE PERFORMERS
Bassett, Leslie

Quintet: brass (1988)

Beach, Amy

Quintet: flute, string quartet, Theme and [6] Variations, Op. 80

Quintet: piano, strings, F-sharp minor, Op. 67

Bernstein, Leonard

Quintet: brass, Dance Suite (1990; optional percussion)

Brahms, Johannes

Quintet: piano, strings, F minor, Op. 34

Quintet: clarinet, strings, B minor, Op. 115

Quintet: strings, F major, Op. 88; G major, Op. 111

Britten, Benjamin

Quintet: strings, F minor

Buxtehude, Dieterich

O dulcis Jesu, BuxWV 83, two sopranos, two violins, basso continuo

Cambini, Giuseppe Maria Gioacchino

Trois quintetti, Livre 1

Chadwick, George Whitefield

Quintet: piano, strings, E-flat

Danzi, Franz

Quintets: flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, Op. 56, Nos. 1-3; Op. 67, Nos. 1-3; Op. 68, Nos. 1-3

Davidovsky, Mario

Synchronisms: flute, clarinet, violin, cello, electronics, No. 2

Davies, Peter Maxwell

Quintets: brass, 1981; Two Motets; Pole Star

Denisov, Edison

Quintet: clarinet, strings

Quintet: piano, strings

Quintet: wind

Romantische Musik, oboe, violin, viola, cello, harp

Druckman, Jacob

Other Voices, brass quintet

Dvo ák, Antonín

Quintets: strings, A minor, B7 (1861); G major, Op. 77 B49 (1875; 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass); E-flat, Op.
97, B180 (1893)

Quintet: piano, strings, A major, Op. 81, B155 (1887)

Farrenc, Louise

Quintets: piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, A minor, Op. 30; E major, Op. 31

Page 309 →

Fauré, Gabriel

Quintets: piano, strings, D major, Op. 89; C major, Op. 115

Foote, Arthur

Quintet: Nocturne and Scherzo, flute, string quartet

Quintet: piano, strings, A minor

Franck, César

Quintet: piano, strings, F minor

Friedrich Christian Ludwig, Prince of Prussia

Larghetto variée, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass

Quintet: piano, strings, C minor, Op. 1

Harrison, Lou

Suite: percussion (1942), 5 players

Hindemith, Paul

Quintet: clarinet, strings (1923; rev. 1954)

Husa, Karel

Divertimento, brass quintet, optional percussion

Ives, Charles

“The Gong on the Hook and Ladder,” string quartet or quintet, piano
Quintet: piano, strings, “Largo risoluto” Nos. 1 and 2; “Halloween” (opt. percussion); “In Re con moto et al”

Lansky, Paul

Crossworks, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano

Leeuv, Ton de

“And They Shall Reign Forever,” mezzo-soprano, clarinet, French horn, piano, percussion

Ligeti, György

Six Bagatelles, wind quintet

Ten Pieces, wind quintet

Mendelssohn, Felix

Quintets: strings, A major, Op. 18; B-flat major, Op. 87

Messiaen, Olivier

Quintet: Pièce, piano, strings

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Adagio and Fugue, K. 546, piano 4 hands; string quartet, double bass

Quintet: clarinet, strings, A major, K. 581

Quintet: horn, strings, double bass, K. 386c

Quintet: piano, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, K. 452

Quintets: strings, K. 174; K. 406; K. 515; K. 516; K. 614

Nielsen, Carl

Quintet: strings, G minor

Quintet: wind, Op. 43

“Serenata in vano,” clarinet, bassoon, horn, cello, double bass

Ved en ung kunstners Baare, string quartet, double bass

Prokofiev, Serge

Quintet: oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, double bass, G minor, Op. 39 (1924)

Reicha, Anton

Quintets: flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, Op. 88, Nos. 1-6; Op. 91, Nos. 1-6; Op. 99, Nos. 1-6; Op. 100, Nos.
1-6

Page 310 →

Rheinberger, Joseph
Quintet: strings, A minor, Op. 82

Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai

Quintet: flute, clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano, B-flat

Rorem, Ned

Quintet: brass, Diversions (1989)

Saint-Saëns, Camille

Quintet: piano, strings, A minor, Op. 14

Schnittke, Alfred

Quintet: piano, strings (1976)

Serenade, clarinet, violin, double bass, percussion, piano

Schoenberg (Schönberg), Arnold

Ode to Napoleon, string quartet, reciter, Op. 41 (1945)

Quintet: winds, Op. 26 (1924)

Schubert, Franz Peter

Adagio and Rondo Concertante, piano, strings, D. 487

Quintet: piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, Op. 114, Trout

Schumann, Robert

Quintet: piano, strings, E-flat, Op. 44

Schütz, Heinrich

“Anima mea liquefacta est,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 263-264, two tenors, two cornettos, basso continuo

Seven Words, S, A, T, B soli, basso continuo

Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitriyevich

Quintet: piano, strings, G minor, Op. 57

Sibelius, Jean

Quintet: piano, strings, G minor (1890)

Spohr, Louis

Quintet: piano, flute, clarinet, horn, bassoon, C minor, Op. 52

Stradella, Alessandro

“Lasciate ch'io respiri, ombre gradite” G. 1.4-12, soprano, bass, two violins, basso continuo
Vaughan Williams, Ralph

Phantasy Quintet, strings

Webern, Anton

Six songs with Four Instruments (soprano, clarinet, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, violin, cello), Op. 14 (1923)

SIX PERFORMERS
Brahms, Johannes

Sextet: strings, B-flat major, Op. 18

Britten, Benjamin

Sextet: winds

Cage, John

First Construction in Metal, 6 percussionists

Chou Wen-chung

Ceremonial, three trumpets, three trombones

Page 311 →

Eternal Pine, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion (one player) bass drum, four tom-toms, two dome
cymbals, two crash cymbals, cncerro, bell

Suite: harp, wind quintet

Twilight Colors, flute/alto flute, oboe/English horn, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello

Davidovsky, Mario

Synchronisms: wind quintet, electronics, No. 8

Denisov, Edison

Three Pictures after Paul Klee, oboe, horn, piano, vibraphone, viola, double bass

Druckman, Jacob

Delizie contente che l'alme beate, wind quintet, electronic sounds

Dvo ák, Antonín

Sextet: strings, A major, Op. 48, B80

Gubaidulina, Sophia

Sextet: Meditation on the Bach Chorale “Vor deinem Thron tret ich hiermit” harpsichord, string quintet

Haydn, Franz Joseph

Echo Sonata, Hob. II/39 (2, 2, 2)

Divertimentos: Hob. II/21; II/22; II/41; II/42; II/43; II/44; II/45; II/46; F7

Husa, Karel

Divertimento, brass quintet, optional percussion

Ives, Charles

“From the Steeples and the Mountains,” trumpet, trombone, four sets of bells

Janá ek, Leos

Sextet: winds, Youth

Messiaen, Olivier

Fête des belles eaux, six ondes Martenot

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Divertimento: K. 113; F major, K. 247; E-flat, K. 563

Penderecki, Krzysztof

Sextet: clarinet, horn, string trio, piano

Poulenc, Francis

Sextet: piano, wind quintet (1939)

Read, Gardner

Los Dioses Aztecas, Op. 107, six percussionists

Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai

Sextet: strings, A major

Schoenberg (Schönberg), Arnold

Sextet: strings, Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4

Schütz, Heinrich

“Attendite, popule meus,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 270, bass, four trombones, basso continuo

“Domine, labia mea aperies,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 271, soprano, tenor, cornetto, trombone, bassoon,
basso continuo

“Fili mi, Absalon,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 269, bass, four trombones, basso continuo

Page 312 →

“In lectulo per noctes,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 272-273, soprano, alto, three bassoons, basso continuo

Tschaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich

Sextet: strings, Souvenir de Florence

Webern, Anton

Five songs with five instruments (voice, flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, trumpet, harp, violin/viola), Op. 15 (1922)

SEVEN PERFORMERS
Adams, John

Shaker Loops, three violins, viola, two celli, double bass

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Septet: Op. 20, clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, double bass

Page 313 →

Boulez, Pierre

Le marteau sans maître, alto voice, alto flute (i.e., G), guitar, vibraphone, xylorimba, percussion, viola

Cohn, James

Concerto da camera for violin, piano, woodwind quintet, Op. 60

Friedrich Christian Ludwig, Prince of Prussia

Notturno, flute, violin, viola, cello, piano, two horns, Op. 8

Ives, Charles

“An Old Song Deranged,” clarinet/English horn, harp/guitar, violin/viola, viola, two celli

Ravel, Maurice

Introduction and Allegro, flute, clarinet, harp, string quartet

Scarlatti, Alessandro

Su le sponde del Tebro, soprano, trumpet, strings, continuo

Schoenberg (Schönberg), Arnold

Pierrot lunaire, flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin/viola, cello, piano, speaking voice

Suite: 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano, Op. 29

Schütz, Heinrich

“O Jesu süß, wer dein gedenkt,” Symphoniae sacrae vol. 3, SWV 406, 2 sopranos, 2 tenors, 2 violins, basso
continuo

Spohr, Louis

Septet: flute, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, cello, piano, A minor, Op. 147

Stravinsky, Igor

Septet: clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano, violin, viola, cello

EIGHT OR MORE PERFORMERS
Bach, Johann Sebastian

Ich habe genug, S. 82, basso, oboe, strings, basso continuo

Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, S. 51, soprano, trumpet, strings, basso continuo

Boulez, Pierre

Sur incises, three pianos, three harps, three percussionists, vibraphones, marimba, steel drums, crotales,
glockenspiel, timpani, tubular bells

Chou Wen-chung

Yü Ko, violin, alto flute, English horn, bass clarinet, trombone, bass trombone, piano, two percussionists

Gubaidulina, Sophia

Hommage à T. S. Eliot, soprano, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violins 1, 2, viola, cello, double bass

Seven Words, cello, bayan, strings

Hindemith, Paul

Octet: clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, two violas, cello, double bass (1958)

Ives, Charles

“Scherzo: Over the Pavements” (1910; rev. 1927) piccolo, clarinet, bassoon/baritone saxophone, trumpet, three
trombones, cymbals, bass drum, piano

Keuris, Tristan

Divertimento, violin, piano, woodwind quintet, double bass

Kraft, William

Encounters, eleven percussion pieces, various scorings including tape, trumpet, trombone, saxophone, English
horn, violin, cello, roto-toms

Momentum, eight percussionists

Quartets: percussion, Theme and Variations (1956); Quartet (1988)

Lansky, Paul

Values of Time, wind quintet, string quartet, electronic sounds

Mendelssohn, Felix

Octet: strings, E-flat, Op. 20

Reich, Steve

Octet: flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, two pianos, two violins, viola, cello

Rheinberger, Joseph
Nonet: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, double bass, A major, Op. 139

Roldan, Amadeo

Rítmicas

Saint-Saëns, Camille

La carnaval des animaux, 2 pianos, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass, flute, clarinet, harmonium, xylophone

Schoenberg (Schönberg), Arnold

Serenade: clarinet, bass clarinet, mandolin, guitar, violin, viola, cello, bass voice, Op. 24 (1923)

Schubert, Franz Peter

Octet: strings, double bass, F major, Op. 166, D. 803

Spohr, Louis

Double-quartets: strings, D minor, Op. 65; E-flat major, Op. 77; E minor, Op. 87; G minor, Op. 136

Page 314 →

Nonet: violin, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, F major, Op. 31.

Octet: violin, two violas, cello, double bass, clarinet, two horns, E major, Op. 32.

Stravinsky, Igor

Octet: flute, clarinet, bassoons 1, 2, trumpets 1, 2 (C and A), trombones 1, 2 (tenor bass)

Varèse, Edgard

Octandre, flute (piccolo), clarinet (E-flat clarinet), oboe, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, double bass
Page 315 →

Notes
INTRODUCTION
1. These figures are totals for the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island excluding
present-day Nassau County and Westchester County.
2. These figures are based on seating capacities given in Michael Forsyth, Buildings for Music: The
Architect, the Musician, and the Listener from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press, 1985), appendix: “Chronological Table of Concert Halls and Opera Houses,” 329–31.

CHAPTER 1
1. For additional information on early instruments, see Sibyl Marceuse, Musical Instruments: A
Comprehensive Dictionary (New York: Norton, 1975).
2. But see Helen Hewitt, ed., Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of
America, 1946), 31–42.
3. John Stevens, ed., Musica Britanica, vol. 18, Music at the Court of Henry VIII (London: Stainer and Bell,
1962). Stevens observes: “We have…in Henry VIII's Book the earliest substantial collection of part-music
in England for instruments alone” (p. xix).
4. A modern edition has been published by Stainer and Bell (London, 1964).
5. The term “broken musick” refers to the breaking up of long note values into smaller values; in other
words, the music as it is written is freely ornamented by the performers. Contemporary scholars sometimes
use the term “mixed” consort rather than “broken” consort to avoid confusion.
6. John Irving, “Consort Playing in Mid-17th-Century Worcester,” Early Music 12 (August 1984), 340–44,
argues that the full string consort was “semi-broken” by the mid-seventeenth century, a transitional period
when the violin family was gradually replacing the viol as the preferred stringed instrument. Irving's
findings show that violins were sometimes used for the treble parts with viols on the lower voices
7. Eleanor Selfridge Field traces the evolution of the canzona in northern Italy Page 316 →in Venetian
Instrumental Music from Gabrieli to Vivaldi (New York: Praeger, 1975), 88–95, 102–18. Though Selfridge
Field's title suggests otherwise, the development of the canzona in Brescia, one of the centers for its
cultivation, is nicely documented and illuminated with musical examples.
8. Florentio Maschera, Libro primo de canzoni (Brescia: Vincenzo Sabbio, 1584).
9. Adriano Banchieri, Canzoni (Venice: Ricciardo Amadino, 1596); Florio Canale, Canzoni (Venice:
Giacomo Vincenti, 1600); Tarquinio Merula, Il primo libro delle canzoni (Venice: Gardano, 1615);
Maurizio Cazzati, Canzoni a 3 (Venice: Bartolomeo Magni, 1642). A modern edition of Banchieri's
collection has been made by Leland Bartholomew (Madison, Wis.: A-R Editions, 1975).
10. Imogen Horsley, Fugue: History and Practice (New York: Free Press, 1966), 135.
11. Concerning the inganno and its use by Frescobaldi, see Roland Jackson, “On Frescobaldi's
Chromaticism and Its Background,” Musical Quarterly 57 (1971), 255–69; John Harper, “Frescobaldi's
Early inganni and Their Background,” Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 105 (1978–79), 1–12;
and Gene S. Trantham, “An Analytical Approach to Seventeenth-Century Music: Exploring inganni in
Fantasia seconda (1607) by Girolamo Frescobaldi,” College Music Symposium 33–34 (1993–94), 70–92.
12. Robert Donington and Gustav Reese discovered the source of the melody simultaneously but
independently. See Robert Donington and Thurston Dart, “The Origin of the In nomine,” Music and Letters
30 (1949), 101; and Gustav Reese, “The Origin of the English In nomine,” Journal of the American
Musicological Society 2 (1949),7.
13. For details of instrumentation, see Sandra Mangsen, “Instrumental Duos and Trios in Italian Printed
Sources: 1600–1675,” Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1989, 1:ii. For a general history of the trio sonata, see
Peter Allsop, The Italian “Trio” Sonata (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
14. Exactly where sonatas were used in the Roman Catholic Mass is not clear. See Stephen Bonta, “The
Uses of the Sonata da chiesa,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 22 (1969), 54–84.
 15. Abram Loft, Violin and Keyboard: The Duo Repertoire, 2 vols. (New York: Grossman, 1973), is
indispensable in studying this literature. Loft's study begins with the early seventeenth century and
continues through the 1960s.
16. Throughout the Baroque era, key signatures in the minor mode were frequently incomplete. In
particular, the status of the sixth scale degree was not always indicated. Apparently, the Dorian mode, with
its characteristic major sixth above the finalis, was regarded as the basic scale from which the minor mode
was derived. [Michel?] de St. Lambert's treatise Les principes du clavecin (Paris: Christophe Ballard, 1702)
was the first to advocate key signatures showing lowered third, sixth, and seventh scale degrees in minor.
17. Sonatas with obbligato keyboard parts include most movements in the six Sonatas for violin and
harpsichord, BWV 1014-1019a, the Sonata for violin and harpsichord, BWV 1022, the three Sonatas for
gamba and harpsichord, BWV 1027–29, and the three Sonatas for transverse flute and harpsichord, BWV
1030–32. Sonatas with basso continuo parts include the two Sonatas for violin and Page 317 →continuo,
BWV 1021, and 1023, the three Sonatas for transverse flute and continuo, BWV 1033–35, and the Sonata
for two flutes and continuo, BWV 1039. This last sonata was reworked as the Sonata for gamba and
harpsichord, BWV 1027, cited above. Sonatas of doubtful authenticity (i.e., BWV 1020, 1024, 1025, 1026,
1036, 1037, and 1038) have not been considered, nor has the special case of the sonata within Bach's
Musikalisches Opfer, BWV 1079. It is not my intention to suggest that Bach introduced the sonata with
obbligato keyboard, or that he set a trend of any sort. On the contrary, Bach was notoriously conservative,
and his chamber sonatas were circulated only in a limited number of manuscript copies. For additional
information regarding Bach's sonatas and further observations about the changing role of the keyboard in
the music of this period, see Hans Hering, “Das Klavier in der Kammermusik des 18. Jahrhunderts,” Die
Musikforschung 23 (January-March 1970), 22–37.
18. Carolyn Gianturco, Alessandro Stradella 1639–1682: His Life and Music (New York: Clarendon Press,
1994), 96, 35. The G-numbers here refer to Gianturco's thematic catalog of Stradella's works (Stuyvesant,
N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 1991).
19. Denis Arnold, “The Second Venetian Visit of Heinrich Schütz,” Musical Quarterly 71 (Fall 1985), 362.
20. Ibid., 368.
21. See Kerala J. Snyder, Dieterich Buxtehude, Organist in Lübeck, rev. ed. (Rochester, N.Y.: University of
Rochester Press, 2007).
22. Kerala J. Snyder, notes for Dieterich Buxtehude, Vocal Music, vol. 1 (Copenhagen: Dacapo / Marco
Polo, 1996), 8.
23. Alfred Dürr, Die Kantaten von Johann Sebastian Bach (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1971), 2:543.
24. Ibid., 445.
25. Ibid., 446.

CHAPTER 2
1. William S. Newman, The Sonata in the Classic Era, 3rd ed. (New York: Norton, 1983), 148.
2. Leopold Kotzeluch, Trois sonatas pour le clavecin ou le forte-piano avec accompagnement d'un violon et
violoncelle (Paris: Boyer, n.d.).
3. Trans. William J. Mitchell as C. P. E. Bach, Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments
(New York: Norton, 1949).
4. Trans. Edward R. Reilly as Johann Joachim Quantz, On Playing the Flute (New York: Free Press, 1966).
5. Trans. Editha Knocker as Leopold Mozart, Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing, 2nd
ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951).
6. Quoted and translated in Dora Wilson, “Löhlein's Klavierschule: Toward an Understanding of the Galant
Style,” International Review of the Æsthetics and Sociology of Music 12 (1981), 106.
7. Franz Joseph Haydn, Trois sonates pour le forte piano composés et dediées a son altesse Madam la
Princesse Marie Esterhazy (Munich: Falter, 1797). This publication was Senenfelder's eighth lithographic
work and apparently the first use of lithography for reproduction of music.Page 318 →
8. See my article, “Haydn and His Publishers: A Brief Survey of the Composer's Publishing Activities,”
Music Review 44 (May 1983), 87–94.
9. Johann Schobert, Sonatas pour le clavecin qui peuvent jouer avec l'accompagnement de violon (Paris:
Bailleux[?], n.d.).
10. Bayon and her works are discussed in Deborah Hayes, “Marie-Emmanuelle Bayon, Later Madame
Louis, and Music in Late Eighteenth-Century France,” College Music Symposium: Journal of the College
Music Society 30 (Spring 1990), 14–33. Additional information is contained in Hayes's introduction to the
facsimile reprint (New York: Da Capo Press, 1990) of Bayon's sonatas.
11. For a detailed discussion of this complex issue, see David Fuller, “Accompanied Keyboard Music,”
Musical Quarterly 60 (January 1974), 222–45. Especially helpful is the information found on pp. 227–31.
12. Jacopo Gotifredo Ferrari, Trois sonates pour clavecin ou forte-piano avec violon obligé et basse ad
libitum…œuvre Iim (Paris: Sieber; also issued in Vienna: Artaria. Pl. no. 476).
13. Ronald R. Kidd, “The Emergence of Chamber Music with Obbligato Keyboard in England,” Acta
musicologica 44 (1972), 122.
14. A précis of terminological considerations is included in Fuller's article, “Accompanied Keyboard Music,
” 223–24.
15. A general discussion of the form of later eighteenth-century sonatas is contained in Newman, Sonata in
Classic Era, 112–66. The three-movement sonata plan in the tempo sequence fast-slow-fast exists as a
standard only in music appreciation texts. Sonatas were commonly written as single movements, paired
movements, and cycles of three or four movements throughout the eighteenth century. Only Mozart
fastened onto the three-movement plan as a sine qua non of sonata composition—and this only in his solo
keyboard sonatas.
16. Kidd, “Emergence of Chamber Music,” 143. Kidd suggests that orchestral models inspired Schobert's
style, as does Michael Broyles, “The Two Instrumental Styles of Classicism,” Journal of the American
Musicological Society 36 (Summer 1983), 226–29.
17. Gotifredo Jacopo Ferrari, Trois grandes sonates pour harpe avec accompagnement de violon et basse
(Paris: Pleyel. Pl. no. 80; also by Sieber. Pl. no. 71.)
18. Rameau's title suggests that when a violin is used for the obbligato treble, a cello (i.e., deuxieme violon)
should be used for the bass line; conversely, flute obbligato should be paired with a bass viol.
19. K. 6, 7, 8, 9 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 296, 301, 302, 303,
304, 305, 306, 372 (only one surviving movement), 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 402, 403, 404, 454, 481, 526,
547, and two sets of variations, K. 359 and 360.
20. The subject is explored in Boris Schwarz, “Violinists around Mozart,” in Music in the Classic Period:
Essays in Honor of Barry S. Brook, ed. Allan W. Atlas (New York: Pendragon, 1985), 233–48.
21. Loft, Violin and Keyboard, 230–31.
22. James Webster argues that Austria was “remarkably isolated from North and West European musical
culture” up to about the year 1780. See his “Towards a History of Viennese Chamber Music in the Early
Classical Period,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 27 (1974), 212–47, especially
214–15.Page 319 →
23. See Loft, Violin and Keyboard, 228–303.
24. Webster, “Viennese Chamber Music,” 246.
25. Terminology relating to mid-eighteenth-century styles was highlighted in a terse article by Charles L.
Cudworth, “Baroque, Rococo, Galant, Classic,” Monthly Musical Record 3 (September 1953), 172–75. A
précis of the divergent styles of music in western Europe during the second half of the eighteenth century is
contained in Jens Peter Larsen, “Some Observations of the Development and Characteristics of Vienna
Classical Instrumental Music,” Studia musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 9 (1967), 115–39.
Important information regarding the style galant can be found in Ernst Bücken, “Der galante Stil: Eine
Skizze seiner Entwicklung,” Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft 6 (1924), 418–30; David A. Sheldon, “The
Galant Style Revisited and Re-evaluated,” Acta musicologica 47 (1975), 240–69; Sheldon, “The Concept
Galant in the 18th Century,” Journal of Musicological Research 9 (1989), 89–108; Lothar Hoffmann-
Erbrecht, “Der ‘Galante Stil’ in der Musik des 18. Jahrhunderts: Zur Problematik des Begriffs,” in Studien
zur Musikwissenschaft 25 (Graz: Hermann Böhlaus, 1962), 252–60; and Mark A. Radice, “The Nature of
the Style galant: Evidence from the Repertoire,” Musical Quarterly 83 (Winter 1999), 607–47. The origin
and history of the term Sturm und Drang is traced by William E. Grim, in “The Musical Sturm und Drang:
Analysis of a Controversy,” Ars musica Denver 3 (Fall 1990), 1–13.
26. Hoboken lists additional string trios of questionable authenticity; nevertheless, the typical scoring even
in these is for two violins and bass. Anthony van Hoboken, Joseph Haydn: Thematisch-bibliographisches
Werkeverzeichnis, 3 vols. (Mainz: B. Schott's Söhne, 1957).
27. Some important recent studies providing an overview of the origins, history, and development of this
genre are Ludwig Finscher, Studien zur Geschichte des Streichquartetts (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1974); and
Paul Griffiths, The String Quartet (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1983).
28. For a discussion of the Allegri work, see Eaglefield Hull, “The Earliest Known String-Quartet,” Musical
Quarterly 15 (1929), 72–76; and Ruth Halle Rowen, Early Chamber Music (New York, 1949; reprint New
York: Da Capo Press, 1974), 83–84. The Scarlatti pieces are discussed in Griffiths, The String Quartet, 7–8.
29. La reine de Chypre: Airs arrangés en quatuor pour 2 violons, alto et basse en 3 suites par Richard
Wagner, Musique de F. Halévy (Paris: M. Schlesinger, 1842).
30. Einzeldrücke vor 1800, series A of Repertoire internationale des sources musicales (London, 1971–81).
31. For an overview of the later eighteenth-century Viennese string quartet, see Roger Heckman, “The
Flowering of the Viennese String Quartet in the Late Eighteenth Century,” Music Review 50 (August-
November 1989), 157–80, which comments on the quartets of lesser composers including Ignaz Pleyel, F.
A. Hoffmeister, Adalbert Gyrowetz, Franz Krommer, Anton Wranizky, and F. A. Förster.
32. Alan Tyson and H. C. Robbins Landon, “Who Composed Haydn's Op. 3?” Musical Times 105 (July
1964), 506.
33. Ibid., 507.
34. Ibid.
35. Hoboken, Joseph Haydn, 1:378, suggests that these quartets were composed Page 320 →before 1769;
Griffiths (The String Quartet, 19) contends that they were likely composed in 1769–70.
36. Griffiths, The String Quartet, 19–20.
37. Donald Francis Tovey, “Haydn,” Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music (London: Oxford
Universty Press, 1929), 533.
38. Andreas Ließ, “Fux, Johann Joseph,” Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 4, col. 1172. An
English translation of the portion of Fux's treatise devoted to counterpoint has been made by Alfred Mann
under the title The Study of Counterpoint (New York: Norton, 1965).
39. Forbes, Thayer's Life of Beethoven, appendix C, 1062. Beethoven's studies in counterpoint with Haydn,
which were based on Fux, are reproduced in facsimile with commentary in Alfred Mann, The Great
Composer as Teacher and Student: Theory and Practice of Composition (reprinted New York: Dover,
1994).
40. Finscher goes too far in asserting, “Neither earlier nor later did Haydn write string quartets that were so
dark and unapproachable, in which so many spheres confusedly obstruct one another as here.” Geschichte
des Streichquartetts, 218.
41. Ibid., 265.
42. Ibid., 242.
43. Eric Weimer, “Opera Seria” and the Evolution of Classical Style: 1755–1772 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI
Research Press, 1984), 47.
44. Ibid., 48.
45. See Kathi Meyer and Inger M. Christensen, “Artaria Plate Numbers,” Notes 15 (1942), 1–22.
46. The Collected Correspondence and London Notebooks of Joseph Haydn, ed. H. C. Robbins Landon
(Fairlawn, N.J.: Essential Books, 1959), 24–25.
47. K. 80, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160.
48. The Serenade in C minor for Wind Octet, K. 388, dates from ca. 1782 or 1783. In many ways, its string
quintet version is an apt companion for the G-minor Quintet owing to the serenade's “driving energy and
consistent intensity…its chromatic writing, its strikingly unorthodox phrase structure, its pulsating inner
parts and its vigorous sforzandos.” Stanley Sadie, The New Grove Mozart (New York: Norton, 1982),
98–99. The contrapuntal complexity of the serenade is apparent in the trio, for example, which makes
extensive use of subject inversion, a device largely alien to eighteenth-century music for wind ensemble.
49. Howard Chandler Robbins Landon, quoted in Neal Zaslaw, ed., with William Cowdery, The Compleat
Mozart: A Guide to the Musical Works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (New York: Norton, 1990), 255.
50. Ibid. Leopold died on 28 May.
 51. See Robert L. Marshall in his article “Bach and Mozart: Styles of Musical Genius,” Bach: The Journal
of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute 22 (Spring-Summer 1991), 16–32.
52. For Haydn's own account, see Collected Correspondence and London Notebooks.
53. Concerning the nationalistic origins and applications of Haydn's tune, see Paul Nettl, National Anthems,
trans. Alexander Gode (New York: Storm, 1952). Nettl, following the lead of Alfred Heuss, provides a
programmatic exegesis of all four movements of the quartet. See pp. 64–65.Page 321 →

CHAPTER 3
1. See James Webster, “The Scoring of Mozart's Chamber Music for Strings,” in Music in the Classic
Period: Essays in Honor of Barry S. Brook, ed. Allan W. Atlas (New York: Pendragon, 1985), 264–65, who
indicates that “The Mozarts…appear to have made more consistent distinctions in terminology for the
various genres. One genre that clearly is orchestral (and for which there was no counterpart in Vienna)
comprises the Salzburg works that we call ‘serenades’ today, such as the ‘Haffner’ (K. 250, 1776) and the
‘Posthorn’ (K. 320, 1779).” He states further that “for the very large serenades of the Finalmusik type, the
Mozarts customary title was at first ‘Cassatio’ (K. 63, 99, 100); for the later ones, ‘Serenata’ (K. 185, 203,
204, 250, [320?]). None bore the title ‘Divertimento.’”
2. Ibid., 276.
3. The proper instrumentation of serenades was first explained by Carl Bär, “Zum Begriff des ‘Basso’ in
Mozarts Serenaden,” Mozart-Jahrbuch (1960–61), 133–55. Note the illustrations facing p. 136 and on p.
143, which show the standing double bassist. A summary of Bär's arguments can be found in Albert
Dunning's edition of Mozart's Ensemblemusik für größere Solobesetzungen, Divertimenti für 5–7 Streichund
Bläsinstrumente (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1976), xvi-xviii. The table on pp. 284–93 of Webster, “Scoring of
Mozart's Chamber Music,” indicates, among other things, the scoring, title, manner of performance, and
instrument of the bass part.
4. Mozart, Ensemblemusik für größere Solobesetzungen, 23–27.
5. Bär, “Zum Begriff des ‘Basso,’” 135.
6. See A. Hyatt King, Mozart Chamber Music (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968), 15, for the
former hypothesis, and Sadie, The New Grove Mozart, 55, for the latter.
7. Homer Ulrich, Chamber Music, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), 197.
8. Alfred Einstein, Mozart: His Character, His Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1945), 178–79.
9. Sadie, New Grove Mozart, 119.
10. For a more detailed discussion, see Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Kammermusik: Quintette mit Bläsern,
ed. Ernst Fritz Schmid (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1958), viii.
11. See Jiri Kratochvíl, “Betrachtungen über die ursprüngliche Fassung des Konzerts für Klarinette und des
Quintetts für Klarinette und Streicher von W. A. Mozart,” Referat auf der Internationalen Mozart-Tagung
in Prag (June 1956). See also George Dezeley, “The Original Text of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto,” Music
Review 9 (1948), 166–72.
12. Since the horn part is designated as “second horn” (corno secondo), it is unlikely that Leutgeb, who
characteristically played the higher, first-horn parts, was involved. The score of this three-movement quintet
was completed on 30 March 1784. Mozart praised it in a letter to Leopold as “the finest piece I have written
to date.”
13. No autograph manuscript of Hob. II/41–46 (ca. 1782–84) survives. Some contemporary sources of these
works use the designation divertimento while Feldparthien (field suite) is the nomenclature in others.Page
322 →

CHAPTER 4
1. All are discussed in Joseph Kerman, The Beethoven Quartets (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 394.
A seventeenth string quartet is his own transcription of the Piano Sonata, Op. 14, No. 1 in E major. In
making the transcription (1802) Beethoven transposed the piece to F major. His remarks concerning this
transcription are cited in Elliot Forbes, ed. Thayer's Life of Beethoven (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
 Press, 1967), 301.
2. Quoted in Forbes, Thayer's Life of Beethoven, 54.
3. Kerman discusses the harmonic structure in detail in The Beethoven Quartets, 76–84.
4. Griffiths, String Quartet, 86.
5. Douglass M. Green, Form in Tonal Music: An Introduction to Analysis, 2nd ed. (New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1979), 231–32.
6. Some scholars—including Vincent d'Indy—consider this coda a miscalculation on Beethoven's part;
however, examination of its pitch content and melodic gestures reveals links with the preceding movements.
For a detailed discussion, see Ernest Livingstone, “The Final Coda in Beethoven's String Quartet in F
Minor, Op. 95,” in Essays on Music for Charles Warren Fox, ed. Jerald C. Graue (Rochester, N.Y.:
Eastman School of Music Press, 1979), 132–44.
7. The Peters firm was founded in 1801 when Franz Anton Hoffmeister and Ambrosius Kühnel merged to
form this publishing house, one that set a model for all others of the day.
8. These dates are based on Forbes, Thayer's Life of Beethoven, 970; Kerman (The Beethoven Quartets, 224)
accepts this information.
9. Beethoven's association with Schlesinger began in 1819, when Moritz Schlesinger visited Vienna to
enroll Beethoven on the company's roster with the intention of becoming Beethoven's principal publisher.
The firm issued the Scottische Lieder, Op. 108, the solo piano Sonatas Opp. 109, 110, and 111, as well as
the Opp. 132 and 135 Quartets.
10. Quoted in Forbes, Thayer's Life of Beethoven, 940. The players were Ignaz Schuppanzigh (1776–1830),
violin 1, Franz Weiß (1778–1830), violin 2, Karl Holz (1799–1858), viola, and Joseph Linke (?), cello.
11. Ibid., 940–41.
12. Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point (New York: Harper and Row, 1928), 425–28. Huxley's novel, as
the title suggests, is about contradictions; during the course of Beethoven's heavenly music, three assassins
knock at the door and murder one of the listeners!
13. See my article “Bartók's Parodies of Beethoven,” Music Review 42 (August-November 1981), 252–60.
The German heading written at the beginning of the movement is in Beethoven's handwriting; the Italian
heading (i.e., Canzona di ringraziamento offerta alla divinita da un guarito, in modo lidico) was by
someone else.
14. Kerman, The Beethoven Quartets, 225–29.
15. In the present discussion, I will consider the Più allegro section following the fourth movement (Alla
marcia, assai vivace) as an introduction to and part of the finale; thus, measure numbers indicated here for
the “last” movement include the twenty-two-measure introduction.Page 323 →
16. Basil Smallman's book The Piano Trio: Its History, Technique, and Repertoire (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1990) provides a concise overview of this genre.
17. King, Mozart Chamber Music, 37.
18. Hans Christoph Worbs, jacket notes for W. A. Mozart, Complete Trios for Piano, Violin, and Cello,
Beaux Arts Trio (Philips LP 6768–032, 1978).
19. Einstein, Mozart, 252, 263.
20. A. Craig Bell, “An Introduction to Haydn's Piano Trios,” Music Review 16 (1955),193.
21. William Mann, brochure for Beethoven: Ten Trios for Piano, Violin and Cello, Borodin Trio, (Chandos
CD recording CHAN 8352/3/4/5, 1987).
22. Oscar G. Sonnek, Beethoven: Impressions by His Contemporaries (1926; New York: Dover, 1967),
48–49.
23. Bach, Essay on the True Art.
24. “During the…summer [1809], Beethoven was busy selecting and copying in order extracts from the
theoretical works of C. P. E. Bach, Türk, Kirnberger, Fux and Albrechtsberger, for subsequent use in the
instruction of Archduke Rudolph.” Forbes, Thayer's Life of Beethoven, 467.
25. For the full text of the agreement, see ibid., 457.

CHAPTER 5
 1. Anthony Baines, “Harmonie, Harmonie-musik,” in The New Oxford Companion to Music, ed. Denis
Arnold (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 1:813.
2. Anthony Baines, Woodwind Instruments and Their History, rev. ed. (New York: Norton, 1963), 312, 314.
3. Ralph P. Locke, “Paris: Centre of Intellectual Ferment,” in The Early Romantic Era: Between
Revolutions, 1789 and 1848 in Music and Society, ed. Alexander Ringer (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice
Hall, 1991), 33.
4. Ibid., 37.
5. A fine recording of the set has been made by the Avalon Wind Quintet (HNH International, Naxos CD
8.553410, 1996).
6. The most comprehensive study of the wind quintet and its repertoire during this formative period is Udo
Sirker, Die Entwicklung des Bläserquintetts in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Regensburg: Bosse,
1968). See also Roy Houser, Catalogue of Chamber Music for Woodwind Instruments (1962; reprint New
York: Da Capo, 1973); Harry B. Peters, The Literature of the Woodwind Quintet (Metuchen, N.J.:
Scarecrow Press, 1971); and Himie Voxman and Lyle Merriman, Woodwind Ensemble Music Guide
(Evanston, Ill.: Instrumentalist, [1973]). For recent literature for wind quintet, the ongoing series entitled
“Quintessence” in The Clarinet is useful.
7. Forbes, Thayer's Life of Beethoven, 96. Reicha arrived in Vienna in 1802 and remained there until 1808.
During this time, he also renewed acquaintances with Haydn, whom he had met when the older composer
visited Bonn.
8. The metronome markings associated with Reicha's quintets were actually supplied by Dauprat after the
composer's death.
9. Gerhard Pätzig, “Who Was Anton Reicha?” notes for Anton Reicha: Sämtliche Bläserquintette, Albert-
Schweitzer-Quintett, Classic Produktion Osnabrück 999 024, vols. 1–3 (1987). Regarding early
performances of Reicha's works, see Jeffrey Page 324 →Cooper, The Rise of Instrumental Music and
Concert Series in Paris: 1828–1871 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1983).
10. Boris Schwartz, French Instrumental Music between the Revolutions: 1789–1830 (New York, 1950;
reprint New York: Da Capo, 1987), 267.
11. Louis Spohr, Louis Spohr's Autobiography (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green,
1865), 2:131.
12. Klaus Burmeister, ed., Danzi: Neun Bläserquintette, Opp. 56, 67, 68, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Edition Peters,
1982), 1:151.

CHAPTER 6
1. Ernst Hilmar, Schubert in His Time, trans. Reinhard G. Pauly (Portland, Ore.: Amadeus Press, 1988), 16.
2. The terms “progressive tonality” and “dramatic key symbolism” are also used to indicate directional
tonality. Schubert's use of the technique fairly common, particularly in his early works.
3. Hans Moldenhauer, Duo-Pianism (Chicago: Chicago Musical College Press, 1950), 400.
4. See Ernest Lubin, The Piano Duet: A Guide for Pianists (New York: Grossman, 1970), 221.
5. Lubin, The Piano Duet, 51–52.
6. Ernst Hilmar, “Schubert and the Publishers,” in Schubert in His Time, 33–43.
7. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Schubert: A Biographical Study of His Songs, trans. Kenneth S. Whitton
(London: Cassell, 1976), 283.
8. Otto Erich Deutsch, Schubert: Memoirs by His Contemporaries (New York: Macmillan, 1958), 115.
9. Franz Peter Schubert, Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1964-), series 6, vol. 7.
10. Ibid., 115.
11. Robert Schumann, On Music and Musicians, ed. Konrad Wolff and trans. Paul Rosenfeld (New York:
Norton, 1969), 121.
12. Griffiths, The String Quartet, 96.
13. Werner P. Friederich, An Outline-History of German Literature, 2nd ed. (New York: Barnes and Noble,
1961), 87.
14. Quoted in Deutsch, Schubert, 289.
15. Ibid., 372.
CHAPTER 7
1. Robert Schumann, Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker, ed. Martin Kreisig (Leipzig: Breitkopf
und Härtel, 1914), 1:248.
2. Louis Ferdinand, Musikalische Werke, 8 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1915–17). The complete
works of the prince are available in a six-disc set issued by Thorofon Schallplatten (76. 30834).
3. See Basil Smallman, The Piano Quartet and Quintet: Style, Structure, Scoring (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1994), 196.Page 325 →
4. Recorded on the Desmar label (DSM 1025G, 1980). The present commentary on the life and works of
Prince Louis Ferdinand is based in part on my jacket notes for that recording.
5. Spohr's account in his Selbstbiographie von Louis Spohr (Kassel: Georg H. Wigand, 1860) ended in June
1838, but was continued by Spohr's widow. For a reprint of the original German version, see Eugen
Schmitz, ed., Selbstbiographie (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1954). The full English translation, Louis Spohr's
Autobiography (Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green, reprinted New York: Da Capo Press,
1969), contains numerous errors. Henry Pleasants's translation includes only those portions of the
Selbstbiographie relating to “the account of Spohr's travels as a young virtuoso, composer, and conductor”
(viii). See his Musical Journeys of Louis Spohr (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961).
6. This tally excludes the two string quartets of 1856–57 listed in Folker Gothel, Thematisch-
Bibliographisches Verzeichnis der Werke von Louis Spohr (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1981), among the
works without opus number: WoO 41, 42, pp. 300–302. In his thematic catalogue, Gothel includes Spohr's
original tempo indications, which were given from about 1816 according to Gottfried Weber's method of
using a pendulum. Spohr indicates the pendulum length in Rhenish inches. During the 1820s and until the
end of his career, he used Mäzel's metronome indications.
7. Regarding Spohr's work at Brunswick, see Clive Brown, Louis Spohr: A Critical Biography (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), 9–34. For information relating specifically to Carl Wilhelm's character
and musical interests, see pp. 9f. Note also Brown's essay “The Chamber Music of Spohr and Weber,” in
Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, ed. Stephen E. Hefling (New York: Schirmer, 1998), 147–69. The
early chamber works are discussed in Martin Wulfhorst, “Louis Spohr's Early Chamber Music
(1796–1812): A Contribution to the History of Nineteenth-Century Genres,” Ph.D. diss., City University of
New York, 1995.
8. Brown, Louis Spohr, 11.
9. Ibid., 15, 27.
10. See Göthel, Thematisch-Bibliographisches Verzeichnis, 151. Concerning the Müller Quartet, Homer
Ulrich notes: “The four Mueller brothers (b. 1797–1809, d. 1855–75) began their quartet playing in 1830.
Confining themselves to Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven and traveling in all parts of western Europe (and
Russia in 1845), they did much to create interest in and to set standards for chamber-music playing.”
Chamber Music, 3n.
11. Brown, Louis Spohr, 37.
12. Spohr, Autobiography, 96.
13. Brown, “Chamber Music of Spohr and Weber,” 151.
14. Clive Brown, ed., Louis Spohr: Chamber Music with Piano (New York: Garland, 1987), 10:viii.
15. For a complete listing of Spohr's quartets, see Gothel, Thematisch-Bibliographisches Verzeichnis.
Quartets bearing the descriptors “grand” or “brillant” are invariably single pieces rather than sets. In his
memoirs, Spohr did not always use the terminology found in the publications, and he apparently used “solo-
quartet” and “quatuor brillant” interchangeably. See Brown, “Chamber Music of Spohr and Weber,”
151.Page 326 →
16. A sampling of the string quartets can be found in Clive Brown, ed., Chamber Music for Strings, vol. 9,
pt. 1, in Selected Works of Louis Spohr (New York: Garland, 1987).
17. See Göthel, Thematisch-Bibliographisches Verzeichnis, 104, Anmerkung. The complete string quartets
of Spohr have been recorded by the New Budapest Quartet on the Marco Polo label.
18. Folker Göthel, notes for Spohr: Double-Quartet in E minor, Op. 87, trans. Alice Dixon (Decca Record,
London Stereo Treasury Series, STS 15074, 1967).
19. Forsyth, Buildings for Music, 203.
CHAPTER 8
1. John Horton, Mendelssohn Chamber Music (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972), 29.
2. Eric Werner, Mendelssohn: A New Image of the Composer and His Age, trans. Dika Newlin (London:
Free Press of Glencoe, 1963), viii.
3. Regarding the status of Bach music in the Romantic era, see Christoph Wolff, The New Bach Reader
(New York: Norton, 1998), 485–526.
4. Werner, Mendelssohn, 19–20.
5. Op. 72 was Mendelssohn's last composition published during his lifetime. Opus numbers above 72
appeared after his death, and they do not reflect the chronology of composition.
6. The Sonata has been issued in a practical edition by VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik (Leipzig, 1966). It
is also included in the Leipziger Ausgabe der Werke Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdys, also published by VEB,
in series 2, vol. 4.
7. (New York: C. F. Peters, 1953). Menuhin suggests a performance time of nineteen minutes. In the
foreword, he observes that the piece “is an example of [Mendelssohn's] full maturity, bearing all the
unmistakable qualities of his period and of his own personal style.”
8. The first performance of the Ninth Symphony took place in 1824, only one year before Mendelssohn's
completion of the Octet; the thematic similarities may, therefore, be purely coincidental.
9. Werner, Mendelssohn, 60.
10. Score and parts ed. Reiner Zimmermann (Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1986). Another
edition is by Patrick Kast (Adliswil, Switzerland: Kunzelmann, 2000).
11. The Quartet has been published in a practical edition and in a study score by Ries und Erler (Berlin,
1969).
12. Werner, Mendelssohn, 22.
13. Ibid., 258–59.
14. Schumann, On Music and Musicians, 227.
15. Griffiths, The String Quartet, 119.
16. Concerning Fanny Mendelssohn/Hensel, see M. J. Citron, “Felix Mendelssohn's Influence on Fanny
Hensel as a Composer,” Current Musicology 37–38 (1984), 9–17; Sebastian Hensel, The Mendelssohn
Family: 1729–1847 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968); Sarah Rothenberg, “Thus Far, but No Farther:
Page 327 →Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel's Unfinished Journey,” Musical Quarterly 77 (Winter 1993),
689–708; Victoria Sirota, “The Life and Works of Fanny Mendelssohn Hensell,” D.M.A. diss., Boston
University School for the Arts, 1981; and Jack Werner, “Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn,” Music and Letters
28 (October 1947), 303–37.
17. He was assisted in this task by Conrad Schleinitz, Ferdinand David, Ignaz Moscheles, Moritz
Hauptmann, and Julius Rietz. Werner, Mendelssohn, 493.
18. Horton, Mendelssohn Chamber Music, 50.
19. Smallman, Piano Trio, 101–5.
20. Peter F. Ostwald, Schumann: The Inner Voices of a Musical Genius (Boston: Northeastern University
Press, 1985), 118.
21. Ibid., 119–20.
22. In German usage, the letter H is used to represent B-natural, and B to represent B-flat.
23. May 1855. Quoted in Ostwald, Schumann, 290.
24. Ibid., 139.
25. Griffiths, The String Quartet, 121.
26. Ostwald, Schumann, 173.
27. Griffiths, The String Quartet, 121.
28. Smallman, Piano Trio, 105.
29. See, for example, Griffiths, The String Quartet, 122.
30. See Smallman, Piano Trio, 105–16.
31. Ostwald, Schumann, 175.
32. John Gardner, “The Chamber Music,” in Robert Schumann: The Man and His Music, ed. Alan Walker
(New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 222.
33. For details of specific tours and programs, see Joan Chissell, Clara Schumann: A Dedicated Spirit (New
York: Taplinger, 1983).
34. Ibid., 127.
35. The final statement of the refrain begins in the subdominant, but terminates in the tonic minor key.
36. Schumann was aware that his piano cycles of the 1830s caused confusion among listeners; but in these
works and his programmatic chamber pieces, definite organizational precepts are employed. Explanation of
aesthetic principles behind such cycles is given in John Daverio, “Reading Schumann by Way of Jean Paul
and His Contemporaries,” College Music Symposium: Journal of the College Music Society 32 (Fall 1990),
28–45. Franz Brendel, Schumann's successor as the editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, was alarmed by
the realization that “Schumann had changed direction after 1840 with works such as the First Symphony,
the String Quartets, the Piano Quintet, and Piano Quartet. He saw these compositions as Schumann's
attempts to present his ideas now through the objectivity of classical forms; he viewed them as an
antithesis…to Schumann's former mode of creation.” Jurgen Thym, “Schumann in Brendel's Neue
Zeitschrift für Musik from 1845 to 1856,” in Mendelssohn and Schumann: Essays on Their Music and Its
Context, ed. Jon W. Finson and R. Larry Todd (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1984), 23.
37. Malcolm MacDonald, Brahms (New York: Schirmer, 1990), 15.
38. Thym, “Schumann in Brendel's Neue Zeitschrift für Musik,” 30.Page 328 →
39. MacDonald, Brahms, 10.
40. Karl Geiringer, “Brahms as a Musicologist,” Musical Quarterly 69 (Fall 1983), 464–65.
41. Ibid., 465.
42. Ibid., 468.
43. Robert Pascall, “Ruminations on Brahms's Chamber Music,” Musical Times 116 (August 1975), 699.
44. Daniel Gregory Mason, The Chamber Music of Brahms (New York: Macmillan 1933), 3-4.
45. Quoted in Theodore Thomas, Theodore Thomas: A Musical Autobiography, ed. George P. Upton
(Chicago, 1905; reprint New York: Da Capo, 1964), 39–40 n. 1
46. The original version of the Trio was published by Breitkopf und Härtel with the plate number 8995. The
revised edition was issued in 1891 by Simrock, Brahms's principal publisher, with the plate number 9510.
Both versions are contained in the complete-works edition assembled by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde
(Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel; reprinted Ann Arbor, Mich.: J. W. Edwards, 1949), vol. 9.
47. MacDonald, Brahms, 74.
48. Mason, Chamber Music of Brahms, 6–7.
49. Eric Sams, “Brahms and His Clara Themes,” Musical Times 112 (1971), 433.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 434.
52. Concerning the Piano Quartet and its revision, see Karl Geiringer, Brahms: His Life and Work, 2nd ed.
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), 227–28.
53. The priority of versions is unclear in this case. In the German preface to the Eulenberg score of the
Sextet, Wilhelm Altmann states that Clara Schumann already knew “die Variationen in d, die Brahms ihr in
der vielleicht ursprünglichen Klavier-Fassung zugesandt hatte” (iv). The botched English translation states
that she already knew “the Variations in D which Brahms may have sent her in the original Piano form.”
Malcolm MacDonald (Brahms, 158 n. 1) states that “Brahms…made a solo piano version…at Clara
Schumann's request.”
54. Donald N. Ferguson, Image and Structure in Chamber Music (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1964), 215.
55. Edwin M. Good, Giraffes, Black Dragons, and Other Pianos (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Press, 1982), 202.
56. Ibid.
57. Malcolm MacDonald, Brahms, 165, speaks of “a work full of tension and shadowed by minor-key
conflict, magnificent in utterance but often sombre or thunderous in its moods.”
58. Nora Bickley, Letters from and to Joseph Joachim (1914; New York: Vienna House, 1972), 307.
59. Brahms performed this version with the pianist Carl Tausig in 1864. He wrote to Clara Schumann about
Tausig and the impending performance in his letter of 4 April of that year. See Berthold Litzmann, ed., The
Letters of Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms: 1853–1896 (New York, 1927; reprint New York: Vienna
House, 1971), 1:165–66.Page 329 →
60. The dates of composition and premiere have been botched on numerous occasions. In his biography of
Brahms, MacDonald states that “its conception” took place “in the highly poetic surroundings of the Black
Forest around Baden in 1864” (175). Smallman, in his study The Piano Trio, states unequivocally that the
piece dates from 1868 (128). In the preface to the Eulenburg study score of the Trio (London: Ernst
Eulenburg, n.d.), Wilhelm Altmann indicates the date of the premiere as 7 December; Melvin Berger gives
the date as 5 December in his Guide to Chamber Music (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1985), 97.
61. Letters of Clara Schumann and Brahms, 1:171–72.
62. Ibid., 176.
63. Ibid., 179.
64. Ethel Mary Smyth (1858–1944) heard the Trio in Utrecht while a student at the Leipzig Conservatory.
See the postscript of Elisabet von Herzogenberg in the letter of 4 October 1878 in Johannes Brahms: The
Herzogenberg Correspondence, ed. Max Kalbeck, trans. Hannah Bryant (New York: Vienna House, 1971),
67. The Utrecht performance probably came about through Professor Wilhelm Engelmann, a resident of that
city, to whom Brahms dedicated his Third String Quartet. In 1879, Theodor Billroth wrote to Brahms on 5
January from Vienna indicating that his “Horn Trio had an enormous success recently. I might scarcely
have expected it with this very deeply felt music, especially since before that, the public didn't feel like
listening attentively. How curious those changes in the audiences are.” See Johannes Brahms and Theodor
Billroth: Letters from a Musical Friendship, trans. and ed. Hans Barkan (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1957), 77.
65. Barkan, Johannes Brahms and Theodor Billroth, 21 n. 1.
66. MacDonald, Brahms, 139.
67. Ibid., 210.
68. MacDonald, Brahms, 225, states that “what we know as the Scherzo may in fact have been the original
Finale—a drastically curtailed but certainly ‘passionate’ one (a plausible thesis, since op. 60's Scherzo, most
unusually, has no formal Trio).”
69. Geiringer, Brahms, 234.
70. See Barkan, Johannes Brahms and Theodor Billroth, 40.
71. Walter Frisch, Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1984), 160; MacDonald, Brahms, 251.
72. Brahms was working on two trios during the summer of 1880: one in C major—eventually published as
Op. 87—and another in E-flat, which he abandoned. The Trio of this movement may well be the place
where the two pieces merged into one. See MacDonald, Brahms, 282, for remarks by Brahms to his
publisher about this piece.
73. See his letter to her in Brahms: The Herzogenberg Correspondence, 167. Elisabet responded on 6
August 1882 with a perceptive discussion of the first two movements, illuminated with numerous musical
examples that she apparently recalled from memory. She could not comment on the last movement since
she did not get to study it sufficiently before returning the score. For the text of her letter, see 167–73.
74. Geiringer, Brahms, 238.
75. Geiringer, “Brahms as Musicologist,” 465.
76. MacDonald, Brahms, 146–47.Page 330 →
77. In her letter of 4 November 1886 to Brahms, Clara Schumann requested copies of Opp. 99 and 100, so
that she might begin preparing them for performances with Hugo Becker and Joseph Joachim respectively.
See Letters of Clara Schumann and Brahms, 2:108.
78. MacDonald, Brahms, 336.
79. Ibid., 342.
80. See Barkan, Johannes Brahms and Theodor Billroth, 220 n. 2.
81. Geiringer, Brahms, 242–43.
82. Barkan, Johannes Brahms and Theodore Billroth, 218 n. 1.
83. Bickley, Letters from and to Joseph Joachim, 448–49. Piatti was the cellist.
84. Letters of Clara Schumann and Brahms, 2:191.
85. Ibid., 2:196. Brahms must have been in earnest about the inadequate skills of solo wind players, since he
subsequently urged the Vienna Tonkünstlerverein to organize a competition for the advancement of wind
 music. He himself contributed to the cash award to be offered. For details, see Pamela Weston, Clarinet
Virtuosi of the Past (London: Robert Hale, 1971), 227.
86. Beethoven's Clarinet Trio of 1805 is excluded from the discussion since it actually was an arrangement,
albeit by the composer himself, of his Septet in E-flat, Op. 20. Subsequent to Brahms, Alexander Zemlinsky
wrote a Trio in D minor, Op. 3, for this ensemble.
87. Geiringer, Brahms, 244.
88. The significance of both the theme per se and the key of F-sharp minor is discussed in Frisch, Brahms,
147–50.

CHAPTER 9
1. Joël-Marie Fauquet, “Chamber Music in France from Luigi Cherubini to Claude Debussy,” in Hefling,
Nineteenth-Century Chamber Music, 287–88.
2. Alan Walker, Franz Liszt, vol. 1, The Virtuoso Years, 1811–1847 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983),
227.
3. Ibid., 183. Katharine Ellis notes that for many French critics, including Francois-Joseph Fétis and Henri
Blanchard, Beethoven's late style period “remained incomprehensible.” See Music Criticism in Nineteenth-
Century France: “La revue et gazette musicale de Paris”, 1834–80 (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1995), 112–16.
4. Walker, Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years, 227.
5. Vincent d'Indy, César Franck, trans. Rosa Newmarch (London, 1910; reprinted New York: Dover,
[1965], 111.
6. Quoted in James Harding, Saint-Saëns and His Circle (London: Chapman and Hall, 1965), 109.
7. Quoted in Harding, Saint-Saëns, 110.
8. Elaine Brody, Paris: The Musical Kaleidoscope, 1870–1925 (London: Robson, 1987), 18. The first
Société concert took place on 25 November 1875. By the onset of World War I, the society had sponsored
over four hundred concerts. Temporarily suspended during the war, the concerts resumed on 10 November
1917. Among its members were Georges Bizet, Ernest Guiraud, Jules Massenet, Page 331 →Théodore
Dubois, and Charles-Marie Widor. See Brody, 17–18. The original group of thirty who joined the society in
1871 had, by 1877, increased to two hundred (Harding, Saint-Saëns, 151). Despite the society's constant and
dramatic growth, “at no time during its existence did the Société have a permanent home and it depended on
the generosity of the Pleyel and Erard piano companies for the use of a hall. The performers gave their
services free and the programmes were lithographed to save printing charges.” Harding, Saint-Saëns, 120.
9. Farrenc was professor of piano at the Paris Conservatory from 1842 to 1873. In addition to the quintets,
she also wrote two piano trios, various sonatas and pieces for violin and piano, a sextet, and a nonet. Like
Franck, she had been a composition pupil of Reicha's.
10. Norman Demuth, César Franck (London: Dennis Dobson, 1949), 36.
11. d'Indy, César Franck, 186–88.
12. Ibid., 193.
13. Ibid., 55.
14. See Smallman, Piano Trio, 161–62. The reconstruction was made by Ellwood Derr.
15. Fauquet, “Chamber Music in France, 310.
16. The Russian influence is discussed in Arthur Wenk, Claude Debussy and Twentieth-Century Music
(Boston: Twayne's Music Series, 1983), 53–54.
17. Abram Loft, Ensemble! A Rehearsal Guide to Thirty Great Works of Chamber Music (Portland, Ore.:
Amadeus Press, 1992), 279.
18. James McCalla, Twentieth-Century Chamber Music (New York: Schirmer, 1996), 174.
19. See Robert Orledge, Gabriel Fauré (London: Eulenberg, 1979), 235–52; Charles Koechlin, Gabriel
Fauré: 1845–1924 (New York: AMS Press, 1976), 62–63; and James C. Kidd, “Louis Niedermeyer's
System for Gregorian Chant Accompaniment as a Compositional Source for Gabriel Fauré,” Ph.D. diss.,
University of Chicago, 1973. This last study takes as its point of departure Niedermeyer's treatise of 1856,
Traité theorétique et pratique de l'accompagnement du plainchant.
 20. Melvin Berger, Guide to Chamber Music, gives the violinist as Gabriel Willaume. See p. 347.

CHAPTER 10

1. Jarmil Burghauser, notes for Antonín Dvo ák: The String Quartets, Prague String Quartet (DGG
2740177, 1977).
2. See Derek Katz and Michael Beckerman, “Chamber Music of Smetana and Dvo ák,” in Nineteenth-
Century Chamber Music (New York: Schirmer, 1998), 324.
3. Jarmil Burghauser, Antonín Dvo ák: Thematik Katalog (Prague: Supraphon, 1996), 843.
4. David Beveridge, “Dvo ák and Brahms: A Chronicle, and Interpretation,” in Dvo ák and His World, ed.
Michael Beckerman (Princeton University Press, 1993), 59.
5. Ibid., 66.
6. Ibid., 72.Page 332 →
7. Ibid., 68.
8. Otakar Dvo ák, Antonín Dvorak, My Father (Spillville, Iowa: Czech Historical Research Center, 1993),
60.
9. Beveridge, “Dvo ák and Brahms,” 71–72.
10. See Klaus Henning Oelmann, The Unfinished Chamber Music of Edvard Grieg (Middleton, Wis.: A-R
Editions, 2002).
11. The addition of another player to render the piccolo part in November 1924 ought not to be taken as a
performance requirement; in May 1926, Leos Janácek supervised a performance of Youth in London, and
six players—with flute doubling on piccolo—participated. See the photograph of the ensemble in Ian
Horsbrugh, Leos Janácek: The Field That Prospered (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982), [181].
12. Kamila was married to David Stössl, an antique dealer, at the time JanáCek met her. Perhaps the
programmatic element of his First String Quartet was a subliminal outworking of his relationship with
Kamila and her husband. Kamila’s photograph appears on [p. 179] of Horsbrugh, Leos Janácek.
13. Ibid., 234.
14. Dohnányi's chamber music includes two piano quintets (1895, 1914) and three string quartets (1899,
1906, 1926).
15. For details about the Parry Collection and Bartók's work with it, see Halsey Stevens, The Life and Music
of Béla Bartók (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), 93-95, 338.
16. Bartók later arranged the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion for Two Pianos and Orchestra of
2.2.2.2.-4.2.3.0-celesta-strings.
17. This type of pizzicato—generally called “Bartók pizzacto”—was probably what Claudio Monteverdi
had in mind in his 1624 score of “Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda,” where he instructed: “Qui si
lascia l'arco e strappano le cordi con dui ditti” (At this point, put down the bow, and twang the string with
two fingers).
18. Further concerning Ives's aesthetics in J. Peter Burkholder, Charles Ives: The Ideas behind the Music
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), especially “Ives and Transcendentalism: A Second Look,”
20–32.
19. The Fourth Sonata—the earliest of the four despite its number—originally had four movements. It
appeared this way in the lithographic printing of ca. 1915; however, “Ives tore the 4th movement out of
almost all copies.” John Kirkpatrick, “A Temporary Mimeographed Catalogue of the Music Manuscripts
and Related Materials of Charles Edward Ives, 1874–1954,” Yale University, 1960, 73.
20. Sonatas and movements designated here as I/i, I/ii, etc. Hymns given by “Tune Name” and (“First line
of text”). I/i, “Shining Shore” (“My days are gliding swiftly by”), “Bringing in the Sheaves” (“Sowing in
the morning”); I/ii, “Work Song” (“Work, for night is coming”); I/iii, “Watchman” (“Watchman, tell us of
the night”); II/i, “Autumn” (“Mighty God, while angels bless Thee”), II/iii “Nettleton” (“Come, Thou fount
of every blessing”); III/i, “Need” (“I need Thee every hour”), “Beulah Land” (“I've reached the land of corn
and wine”), III/ii, “There'll Be No Dark Valley” (“There'll be no more sorrow when Jesus comes”), “Happy
Day” (“O happy day that fixed my choice”), III/iii “Need” (as III/i) and “Happy Day” (as Page 333 →III/ii);
 IV/i “Old, Old Story” (“Tell me the old, old story”), IV/ii, “Jesus Loves Me” (“Jesus loves me”), IV/iii,
“Beautiful River” (“Shall we gather at the river?”). Quotations are identified in Kirkpatrick, “Music
Manuscripts of Ives.” For a comprehensive catalog of texts and tunes used in Ives's works, see Clayton W.
Henderson, The Charles Ives Tunebook (Warren, Mich.: Harmonie Park Press, 1990), 292.
21. John H. Baron, Intimate Music: A History of the Idea of Chamber Music (Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon
Press, 1998), 410.
22. David Drew, “American Chamber Music,” Chamber Music (London: Penguin 1957), 323.
23. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson (New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1951), 247.

CHAPTER 11
1. Joseph Rufer, “Hommage à Schoenberg,” in Arnold Schoenberg Correspondence: A Collection of
Translated and Annotated Letters Exchanged with Guido Adler, Pablo Casals, Emanuel Feuermann, and
Olin Downes, ed. Egbert M. Ennulat (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1991), 3.
2. Ibid., 2.
3. Arnold Schoenberg, letter of 7 September 1912 in Arnold Schoenberg Correspondence, 95.
4. Arnold Schoenberg, “National Music (2),” in Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, ed.
Leonard Stein, trans. Leo Black (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975), 173–74. In this context he lists the
precise musical techniques he acquired from each composer.
5. H. H. Stuckenschmidt, Schoenberg: His Life, World, and Work, trans. Humphrey Searle (New York:
Schirmer, 1978), 370.
6. Discussions appear in Reinhold Brinkmann and Christoph Wolff, eds., Music of My Future: The
Schoenberg Quartets and Trio (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 192
7. Walter B. Bailey, Programmatic Elements in the Works of Schoenberg (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI
Research Press, 1984), 28.
8. The German text and its translation appear in ibid., 28–30.
9. Stuckenschmidt, Schoenberg, 78.
10. For details, see Radice, Concert Music of the Twentieth Century: Its Personalities, Institutions, and
Techniques (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003), 102.
11. Arnold Schoenberg, “Twelve-Tone Composition,” in Style and Idea, 207–8.
12. In these pieces, one player is needed for each instrument listed.
13. The Petrarch sonnet is actually no. 256, “Far potess' io vendetta di coeli / che guardando et parlando mi
distrugge, / et per più doglia poi s'asconde et fugge, / celando li occhi a me sí dolci et rei. | Cosí li afflicti et
stanchi spirti mei/a poco a poco consumando sugge, / e'n sul cor quasi fiero leon rugge / la notte allor
quand'io posar devrei. | L'alma, cui Morte del suo albergo caccia/da me si parte, et di tal nodo sciolta, /
vassene pur a lei che la minaccia. | Meravigliomi ben s'alcuna volta, / mentre le parla et piange et poi
l'abbraccia, / non rompe il sonno suo, s'ella l'ascolta.”Page 334 →
14. The last two tones of the final statement are in the viola and violin parts.
15. Concerning Coolidge, see Cyrilla Barr, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge: American Patron of Music (New
York: Schirmer, 1998), 436.
16. Bailey, Programmatic Elements in Schoenberg, 151.
17. The complete essay and various accounts by persons in the Schoenberg circle appear in Bailey,
Programmatic Elements in Schoenberg, 152–57.
18. Michael Cherlin examines these features in illuminating detail in “Memory and Rhetorical Trope in
Schoenberg's String Trio,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 51 (Fall 1998), 559–602.
19. Leonard Stein, “A Note on the Genesis of the Ode to Napoleon,” Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg
Institute 2 (October 1977), 53.
20. These are listed in appendix 1 of Hans and Rosaleen Moldenhauer, Anton von Webern: A Chronicle of
His Life and Work (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 697–705.
21. Reinhold Brinkmann, “Schoenberg's Quartets and the Viennese Tradition,” in Brinkmann and Wolff,
Music of My Future, 9–12.
22. Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer, Anton von Webern, 248.
 23. Ibid., 326.
24. Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer suggest the possibility that the title originated with Emil Hertzka, the
editorial director of Universal Edition at the time. Moldenhauer and Moldenhauer, Anton von Webern, 193.
25. Quoted in ibid., 194.
26. Moldenhauer and Moldehauer give a fascinating description of Webern’s use of magic squares (i.e.,
charts showing all forty-eight versions of a given row) during the compositional process. See ibid., 321.
27. For Webern’s report to Schoenberg, see Moldenhauer, Anton von Webern, 324.
28. Webern admired the work, had it in his repertoire, and conducted it on at least one occasion, albeit after
the composition of Op. 22. This was on 28 September 1933. It is probable that Webern had the finale of this
symphony in mind when composing his own Passacaglia, Op. 1 as well.
29. These details are explained in an essay that Webern wrote to Erwin Stein in the summer of 1939. An
English translation by Zoltan Roman of this essay is included as appendix 2 in Moldenhauer, Anton von
Webern, 751–56.
30. Berg explains this to Schoenberg in his letter of 8 September 1914, written just days before the latter's
fortieth birthday on 13 September. The work that ultimately became the dedication score is the set of Three
Pieces, Op. 6 (1915) for large orchestra.
31. Mosco Carner, Alban Berg: The Man and the Work (London: Duckworth, 1975), 108.
32. These are discussed in William DeFotis, “Berg's Op. 5: Rehearsal Instructions,” Perspectives of New
Music 17 (Fall-Winter 1978), 131-37.
33. Carner, Alban Berg, 109. The desire for structural integrity has also been noted by Kathryn Bailey, who
argues that in his application of musical materials, “Berg took the step to a more regimented way of
composing, where many things were predetermined, ahead of [Schoenberg and Webern]. See her “Berg's
Aphoristic Pieces,” in Cambridge Companion to Berg, ed. Anthony Pople (New York: Cambridge Page 335
→University Press, 1997), 100. For the entire discussion of Op. 5, see pp. 95–110.
34. See the chart in Carner, Alban Berg, 110. Berg's first asthma attack occurred on 23 July (year unknown).
Geoffrey Poole suggests that Berg had also consulted his natal astrological chart in which the number
twenty-three figures prominently. See Poole's “Alban Berg and the Fateful Number,” Tempo 179
(December 1991), 2–7.
35. Perle recounts his adventure in the three-part article “The Secret Programme of the Lyric Suite,”
Musical Times 118 (August, September, October 1977), 629–32, 709–13, 809–13. Perle also points out
many structural details of the score while explaining their programmatic significance.
36. The evolution of the motif is examined in Douglass Green, “The Allegro misterioso of Berg's Lyric
Suite: Iso- and Retrorhythms,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 30 (Fall 1977), 507–16.
37. Joseph Straus, “Tristan and Berg's Lyric Suite,” In Theory Only 8 (October 1984), 40–41.

CHAPTER 12
1. Carl Nielsen, My Childhood, trans. R. Spink (Copenhagen: Hansen, [1972]), 152.
2. Ibid., 19, 53, 117–20, 129. Nielsen's particular admiration for Mozart's music was reiterated in his
collection of essays Living Music, trans. R. Spink (Copenhagen: Hansen, [1968]), 72.
3. This was with the score of the String Quartet in F minor, Op. 5, which had its first performance in 1892.
See Povl Hamburger, “Orchestral Works and Chamber Music,” in Carl Nielsen Centenary Essays, ed.
Jürgen Balzer (Copenhagen: Nyt Nordisk Forlag, 1965), 21.
4. The early string quartets in D minor and F major (1883, 1887) were not published during Nielsen's
lifetime. They will be included in series 2, vol. 11, of the Nielsen edition currently being issued by Wilhelm
Hansen, Copenhagen. Both “Ved en ung kunstners Baare” and “Serenata in vano” were published in
Copenhagen by Skandinavisk Musikforlag, 1942. The String Quintet was published by Samfundet Til
Udgivelse Af Dansk Musik, Copenhagen, 1965. These last three pieces will appear in the Hansen edition as
series 2, vol. 10. Works for up to three instruments will be included in series 2, vol. 12.
5. A detailed discussion appears in Charles M. Joseph, “Structural Pacing in Nielsen String Quartets,” in
The Nielsen Companion, ed. Mina F. Miller (Portland, Ore.: Amadeus, 1995), 460–88.
6. Joel Lester, “Continuity and Form in the Sonatas for Violin and Piano,” in Miller, The Nielsen
Companion, 513.
7. Ibid., 523.
8. Wilhelm Lanzky-Otto, notes for Horn & Piano: Music for Horn and Piano by Schumann, Mendelssohn,
Mozart, Bentzon, Heise, Nielsen (Djursholm, Sweden: Grammofon AB BIS, 1982), BIS LP 204.
9. Data here and in the remainder of the discussion are based on Glenda Dawn Goss, “Chronology of the
Works of Jean Sibelius,” Sibelius Companion (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996), 323–91.Page 336
→
10. He owned instruments by Guadagnini, Guarneri del Gesù, and Stradivarius. For details, see W. W.
Cobbett, “Chamber Music Life: The Instruments,” in Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music, 2nd
ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), 1:259.
11. W W. Cobbett, “Cobbett Competitions and Commissions,” Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey, 1:284–85.
12. Founded in 1931 by Isolde Marie Menges.
13. Michael Kennedy, The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964),
261.
14. Quoted in ibid., 260.
15. Many youthful works are now available from the Boosey & Hawkes or Faber catalogs.
16. Parts for the Sextet are available from Faber Music.
17. Bridge's most important chamber music connected with Mrs. Coolidge—either as a result of personal
commissions, Coolidge Foundation commissions, or dedications to Mrs. Coolidge—include his String
Sextet No. 2 (2.2.2; 1922), String Quartet No. 3 (1927), Piano Trio (1929), Sonata (1932) for violin and
piano, String Quartet No. 4 (1937), and four Divertimenti (1934) for flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon. This
represents only a fraction of his chamber music output, which includes two earlier string quartets (No. 1 in
E minor, 1906, and No. 2 in G minor, 1915), Phantasie (1905) for string quartet, Three Idylls (1906) for
string quartet, Phantasie (1910) for piano trio, Miniatures (three sets of three; 1908) for violin, cello, and
piano, Phantasie Piano Quartet (1910), String Sextet No. 1 (1912), Piano Quintet (1912), Sonata (1917) for
cello and piano, Rhapsody (1928) for two violins and viola, and Oration (1930) for cello and piano.
Numerous miniatures and larger unpublished works also survive. For details see Paul Hindmarsh, Frank
Bridge: A Thematic Catalogue, 1900–1941 (London: Faber Music, 1983); or Karen R. Little, Frank Bridge:
A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991).
18. The players were William Kroll and Jack Pepper, violins; David Dawson, viola; Naoum Benditzky,
cello.
19. See Esti Sheinberg, Satire, Parody, and Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2001); and Steven Baur, “Ravel's ‘Russian’ Period: Octatonicism in His Early Works, 1893–1908,” Journal
of the American Musicological Society 52 (Fall 1999), 531–92.
20. Rheinberger’s numerous chamber works include his Nonet for flute oboe clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin,
viola, cello, and double bass, Op. 139, the String Quintet in A minor, Op. 82; three string quartets (C minor,
Op. 89, G minor, Op. 93, and F, Op. 147) the Piano Quintet in C, Op. 114, the Piano Quartet in E, Op. 38;
four piano trios (D minor, Op. 34, A, Op. 112, B, Op. 121, and F, Op. 191a), the sonatas in E, Op. 77, and
E-minor, Op. 105 for violin and piano, and the Sonata in C, Op. 92, for cello and piano.
21. Victor Fell Yellin, Chadwick: Yankee Composer (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press,
1990), 28.
22. Ibid., 40.
23. Samplings of these and other reviews are reproduced with translation in Bill F. Faucett, George
Whitefield Chadwick: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1998). See the discussion
“Chamber Music,” 89–100.Page 337 →
24. For an anecdotal biographical account of the years 1914 to 1920, see Allan Lincoln Langley, “Chadwick
and the New England Conservatory,” Musical Quarterly 21 (1935), 39–52.
25. The score was found by David Kelleher and subsequently acquired by the Boston Public Library. I
thank Steven Ledbetter for this information.
26. Quoted in Jeanell Wise Brown, Amy Beach and Her Chamber Music: Biography, Documents, Style
(Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1994), 40. Also in Adrienne Fried Block, Amy Beach, Passionate
Victorian (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 103.
27. Details of her concert programs are preserved in correspondence with her principal publisher, the
 Boston firm of Arthur P. Schmidt. See Brown, Amy Beach, 51–57.
28. Ibid., 57.
29. New York Evening Post review of 17 March 1915. Quoted in ibid., 64. Similar criticism by Henry
Krehbiel and Henry T. Finck is quoted in Block, Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian, 121.
30. Franz Boas, The Central Eskimo, reprinted with an introduction by Henry B. Collins. (Washington,
D.C., 1888; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press [1964]). The tunes and their texts are also in Block, Amy
Beach, Passionate Victorian, [239].
31. The duration of the Quartet is from Beach. See her letter to the Arthur P. Schmidt Co. dated 12 March
1930, quoted in Brown, Amy Beach, 276. The performance by the Crescent Quartet on Leonarda CD LE336
(New York, 1994) is 14:44.
32. For details, see Block, Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian, 238.
33. An edition with an introduction has been made by Adrienne Fried Block (Madison, Wis.: A-R Editions,
1994.)

CHAPTER 13
1. St. Petersburg was called Petrograd from 1914 to 1924, then Leningrad from February 1924 until July
1991, when the name was changed back to St. Petersburg. Throughout this discussion, the city will be
designated as St. Petersburg.
Shostakovich joined the faculty of the conservatory there in 1937 to teach instrumentation and composition.
In 1939, he achieved the rank of professor. The siege of the city during World War II interrupted his
teaching from 1941 until 1943. When he resumed his pedagogical work, it was at the Moscow
Conservatory. In 1947, he resumed his duties at St. Petersburg briefly, but his fall from favor in 1948 forced
him to leave his post. From 1961 until 1966, he taught postgraduate students at St. Petersburg Conservatory.
2. See Dethlef Arnemann, Dmitri Schostakowitsch und das jüdische musicliashe Erbe (Berlin: Kuhn, 2001),
354; Joachim Braun, “The Double Meaning of Jewish Elements in Dimitri Shostakovich's Music,” Musical
Quarterly 71 (Spring 1985), 68–80; Timothy L. Jackson, “Dmitry Shostakovich: The Composer as Jew,” in
Shostakovich Reconsidered, ed. Allan B. Ho and Dmitry Feofanov (London: Toccata Press, 1998),
597–640.
3. Dmitri Shostakovich, Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, ed. Solomon Volkov, trans.
Antonia W. Bouis (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), 289. Page 338 →The accuracy of these memoirs
has been questioned by Laurel Fay, “Shostakovich versus Volkov: Whose Testimony,” Russian Review 39
(October 1980), 484–93; and by Richard Taruskin, “The Peculiar Martyrdom of Dmitri Shostakovich: The
Opera and the Dictator,” New Republic, 20 March 1989, 34–40. Allan B. Ho and Dmitry Feofanov have
defended the accuracy of Testimony in “Shostakovich's Testimony: Reply to an Unjust Criticism,” in Ho and
Feofanov, Shostakovich Reconsidered, 33–311.
4. The principal chamber works of Serge Prokofiev (1891–1953) are his Quintet, Op. 39 (1924) for oboe,
clarinet, violin, viola, and double bass; String Quartet No. 1, Op. 50 (1930), Sonata, Op. 80 (1946) for violin
and piano; String Quartet No. 2, Op. 92 (1941), Sonata, Op. 94 (1944) for flute and piano; and Sonata, Op.
119 (1949) for cello and piano.
5. Regarding the episode, see Radice, Concert Music, 28–29.
6. Quoted in Elizabeth Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1994), 104–5. Shostakovich's preference for very fast tempos was remarked by others including
Nikolai Malko, his conducting teacher at St. Petersburg Conservatory, who noted that “his tempi were
constantly too fast” (quoted in Wilson, 48), and the cellist Valentin Berlinsky (Wilson, 244).
7. Shostakovich stated this plainly to the cellist of the Glazunoff Quartet. See ibid., 132.
8. Quoted in Laurel Fay, Shostakovich (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 141.
9. The personal and public meanings of the Trio are examined in Patrick McCreless, “The Cycle of
Structure and the Cycle of Meaning: The Piano Trio in E Minor, Op. 67,” in Shostakovich Studies, ed.
David Fanning (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 113–36.
10. Jackson, “Dmitry Shostakovich,” 598–99.
11. Shostakovich was well informed on the characteristics of Jewish folk music in Russia: Moshe
Beregovsky compiled and published the collection Yiddische Volks-Lieder in 1938; he completed his Ph.D.
thesis on Jewish folk music at the Moscow Conservatory in 1946, and Shostakovich was his examiner. See
Wilson, Shostakovich, 234.
12. McCreless, “Cycle of Structure,” 125.
13. Ibid., 126.
14. When the violist Borisovsky retired in 1964, he was replaced by Fyodor Druzhinin. The second
violinist, Vasily Shirinsky, died in 1965 and was repalced by Nikolai Zabavnikov. Regarding the first eight
quartets, see Colin M. Mason, “Form in Shostakovich's Quartets,” Musical Times 103 (1962), 531.
15. Khrenninkov is known less for his compositions than for the fact that from 1948 until its dissolution in
December 1991, he was elected forty-three times consecutively to the highly influential post of secretary of
the Union of Soviet Composers.
16. Quoted in Fay, Shostakovich, 217.
17. Corresponding to the pitches D, E-flat, C, B-natural, taken from the letters in the German transliteration
of the composer's name: D. Schostakowitsch.
18. The recording of Op. 134 with Oistrakh accompanied by Shostakovich is currently available from
Eclectra Records, CD no. 2046 (© August 2000).Page 339 →
19. A recording of Op. 134 with Oistrakh accompanied by Shostakovich is currently available from Eclectra
Records, CD no. 2046 (August 2000).
20. In their reminiscences of Shostakovich, both Denisov and Gubaidulina throw bricks along with
bouquets. As a world-renowned personality, the composer was seen by Party officials as a useful vehicle for
propaganda. For reasons that remain unclear, Shostakovich, in September 1960, became a candidate for
membership in the Communist Party. He moved to full membership in the following year. Apparently he
became complacent about statements attributed to him by the Communist Party and failed to speak out
against such abuses, which often had negative impacts on other composers, performers, and creative artists.
See Wilson, Shostakovich, 305–7 (Gubaidulina), 432–34 (Denisov).
21. His works are published primarily by Leduc, Universal, and Sikorski. The Romantishe Music was
issued by Universal [1970]; the Trio by Sikorski [1985].
22. (Hamburg: Sikorski, 1989). In 1986, Denisov made an arrangement of the same piece for viola, flute,
oboe, celesta, and string quintet.
23. Philip Walters, “A Survey of Soviet Religious Policy,” in Religious Policy in the Soviet Union (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 13.
24. Ibid., 13.
25. Quoted in Vera Lukomsky, “'The Eucharist in My Fantasy': An Interview with Sofia Gubaidulina,”
Tempo 206 (October 1998), 125. See also Gubaidulina's discussion of “sacred” and “religion” in Composers
on Music, ed. Josiah Fisk, 2nd ed. (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997), 461.
26. Bayan is a chromatic, push-button accordion. This score and others cited in the following discussion are
available from G. Schirmer.
27. Nicholas Slonimsky, ed., “Gubaidulina, Sofia,” in Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th
ed. (New York: Schirmer, 1990), 679–80.
28. Stimmen: Tagebuch, Novellen, Gedichte (Voices: diary, tales, and poems) (Cologne: Hermansen Verlag,
1979). In addition to Gubaidulina, John Cage, Edison Denisov, and Alfred Schnittke have set Tanzer's
writings. Significant chamber works that have resulted include Dennisov's Wishing Well for soprano,
clarinet, viola, and piano (Hamburg: Sikorski, 1996); and Schnittke's Three Madrigals for soprano,
vibraphone, harpsichord, violin, viola, and double bass (Hamburg: Sikorski, 1981). Gubaidulina has written
other works inspired by Tanzer including her twelve-movement symphony Stimmen…verstummen…
(Voices…growing silent…; 1986) for details see Radice, Concert Music, 210–11.
29. BBC-Music / Profiles-Sofia Gubaidulina (website). “Music: Artist Profiles” (14 January 2004),
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/profiles/gubaidulina.shtml.
30. For Schnittke's opinion of Gershkovich see “In Memory of Filip Moiseevich Gershkovich,” in A
Schnittke Reader, ed. Alexander Ivashkin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 70–71.
31. At its simplest, polystylism is a musical collage. In complex applications, it may involve (1) direct
quotation of specific works or, (2) paraphrase or pseudoquotation, (3) microelements of historical styles,
such as phrase shapes, cadence patterns, ornamentation, etc., (4) allusion, or (5) adaptation (i.e.,
 transformation of established musical scores into different musical idioms). These elements influence the
choice of forms, rhythms, textures, and other parameters. They may appear successively, simultaneously, or
both within the context of a new composition. Page 340 →Schnittke notes that “a composer often plans a
polystylistic effect in advance, whether it be the shock effect of a clashing collage of music from different
times, a flexible glide through phases of musical history, or the use of allusions so subtle that they seem
accidental.” References to “flexible glide” and “allusions” suggest a new modulatory process to
complement traditional concepts of tonal modulation and the more recently developed notion of metric
modulation. The process of stylistic modulation, however, is unexplored territory in music theoretical
literature. For more on polystylism, see Alfred Schnittke, “Polystylistic Tendencies in Modern Music,” in
Ivashkin, A Schnittke Reader, 87–90.
32. As a Bohemian Jew, Mahler's alienation from Austro-German society was twofold. Schnittke's situation
paralleled Mahler's quite closely: “I don't have any Russian blood [yet] I am tied to Russia…but I am not
Russian…. My Jewish half gives me no peace: I know none of the Jewish languages, but I look like a
typical Jew.” Quoted in Ivashkin, A Schnittke Reader, [xiii].
33. Berg had used his name as a motif in his String Quartet No. 2, the Lyric Suite.
34. Further on Lutoslawski in Steven Stucky, Lutoslawski and His Music (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1981), 252.
35. Further on Penderecki in The Music of Krzysztof Penderecki: Poetics and Reception, ed. Mieczyslaw
Tomaszewski (Kraców: Akademia Muzyczna w Krakowie, 1995), 196; Wolfram Schwinger, Krzysztof
Penderecki: His Life and Work, trans. William Mann (London: Schott, 1989), 290.

CHAPTER 14
1. Ligeti noted that the Hungarian is not quite right: In German, Aue means “meadow,” but the Hungarian
liget actually means “thicket.” See Paul Griffiths, György Ligeti (London: Robson Books, 1983), 16.
2. Ibid., 24.
3. Gyögry Ligeti, “Rhapsodische, unausgewogene Gedanken über Musik, besonders über meine eigenen
Kompositionen,” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (January 1993), 24. “Bei ihm [Ockeghem] gibt es
stagnierended Strukturen, da sich die Einzelstimmen stets überlappen, ähnlich den sich überschlagenden
Wellen.
4. I am grateful to Amy Sanchez for pointing out details of Ligeti's writing for a valved horn in the manner
of a natural horn.
5. For details on Husa's life and works, see Mark A. Radice, ed., Karel Husa: A Composer's Life in Essays
and Documents (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002). The chamber works are listed (along with
page references of the concomittent discussions) in the “Chronological Listing of Husa's Works and Index
of Works Discussed,” 211–13.
6. The so-called String Quartet No. 1 was actually Husa's second; the “first,” now known as the Quartet No.
0, was written in 1942–43 during Husa's student years at the Prague Conservatory. The piece was not
performed until the Apollon Quartet gave the permiere in Prague on 23 February 2000, in the Lichtenstein
Palace, at the concert sponsored by the Society for Contemporary Music (Pritomnost). It is Husa's first
composition, but he did not reckon it as “Op. 1,” conferring that designation instead on his Sonatina for
piano solo despite the fact that it was Page 341 →composed after the string quartet and should bear the
designation “Op. 2.” The opus numbers were, therefore, reversed, the String Quartet No. 0 becoming Op. 2.
7. Jacob Hardesty, “The Saxophone Music of Karel Husa,” in Radice, Karel Husa, 98.
8. Karel Husa, quoted in ibid., 99.
9. Husa orchestrated Élégie et rondeau, and on 6 May 1962, Rasher gave the first performance of the
orchestral version with Husa directing the Cornell University Symphony Orchestra.
10. Stephen G. Jones, Review of Karel Husa's Landscapes for Brass Quintet (New York: Associated Music
Publishers, 1984), International Trumpet Guild Journal 21 (December 1997), 56–57.
11. John Rockwell, New York Times, 2 April 1974.
12. Earl George, “Colorado Quartet Gives Grand Performance,” Syracuse Herald Journal, 25 November
1991.
CHAPTER 15
1. The tonal design of the Sinfonia is examined in Ethan Haimo, “Problems of Hierarchy in Stravinsky's
Octet,” Perspectives on Stravinsky (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 36–54.
2. The octatonic scale had been used in the mid-nineteenth century by Franz Liszt; however, its extensive
cultivation within the context of chromatic harmony was the doing of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who even
referred to it as the Russian scale. This symmetrical configuration of half and whole tones was subsequently
exploited by Maurice Ravel, Olivier Messiaen (in whose theoretical writings it is identified as the second
mode of limited transposition), and other French composers. Stravinsky, who studed with Rimsky from
1905 until 1908, knew the scale and its potential before going to France in 1910.
3. Milton Babbitt, “Edgard Varèse: A Few Observations of His Music,” Perspectives of New Music 4
(Spring-Summer, 1966), 14. Varèse's given name was “Edgard,” but he published his music under the name
“Edgar.” Sometime around 1940, he reverted to the original form of the name.
4. Jonathan W. Bernard, “Pitch/Register in the Music of Edgard Varèse,” Music Theory Spectrum 3 (Spring
1981), 5. Correspondingly, inversional equivalence is also rejected since the size of a given interval is an
integral rather than coincidental element of any sonority.
5. But see the corrected edition with critical commentary by Chou Wen-chung (New York: Colfranc Music
Publishing, 1980), 26 and vi.
6. In his commentary on the piece that was published in the Baseler National Zeitung, 13 January 1938,
Bartók refers to the commission as having come “last summer”; however, Stevens, Life and Music of Béla
Bartók, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 83, explains that while the composition of the
piece took place during July and August, the commission actually came in May.
7. For Sacher's account of the rehearsals and premiere, see Stevens, Bartók, rev. ed., 83. In June, the Bartóks
played the piece in Luxembourg and at the London ISCM conference. In the former performance, the
percussionists numbered four!Page 342 →
8. David Osmond-Smith kindly informed me in a communication of 4 July 2004 that a year or so before
Berio's death, he suggested the compilation of a dictionary of twentieth-century composers, in which the
main entries would be written by living composers and performers who felt a particular affinity for their
subject. The only composer on whom he wished to write was Bartók.
9. Olivier Messiaen, Quatuor pour la fine du temps (Paris: Durand, n.d.), preface.
10. In the preface to the score, Messiaen cites this text in French and goes on to remark concerning the
piece, “Il a été directement inspiré par cette citation de l'Apocalypse. Son langage musical est
essentiellement immatériel, spirituel, catholique” (it was inspired directly from this citation from the
Apocalypse. Its musical language is essentially ephemeral, spiritual, catholic).
11. Claude Samuel, Conversations with Olivier Messiaen, trans. Felix Aprahamian (London: Stainer and
Bell, 1976), 2.
12. Ibid., 7.
13. Ibid., 10. The birdsongs used by Messiaen are cataloged in Robert Sherlaw Johnson, Messiaen
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).
14. Samuel, Conversations, 11.
15. Paul Griffiths, notes for Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps, DGG CD 423-247-2 p. 3.
16. Pierre Boulez, “Sound and Word,” in Notes of an Apprenticeship, trans. Herbert Weinstock (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), 54.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., 55.
19. David Osmond-Smith, Berio (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 6. In particular, he notes that
Berio has constructed his row using motifs that will remain distinctive in their serial permutations.
Likewise, rows are combined in ways that facilitate convergence upon common pitches. See ibid., 7–8.
20. FURIOUS CRAFTSMEN

the red caravan at the edge of the prison

and corpse in the basket

 and workhorses on horseshoes

I dream the head on the point of my knife

BEAUTIFUL BUILDING AND THE PREMONITIONS

I hear marching in my legs

the dead sea waves over my head

child the savage boardwalk

man the imitated illusion

of pure eyes in the forest

weeping and seeking a habitable head

hangmen of solitude

the step is distant, the marcher is gone

on the dial of limitation

the scale thrusts its load of granite reflex

21. Pierre Boulez, “Speaking, Playing, Singing,” in Orientations, ed. Jean-Jacques Nattiez, trans. Martin
Cooper (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 339-40.Page 343 →
22. Ibid., 340.
23. Pierre Boulez, preface to Le marteau sans maître(Vienna: Universal, 1957). This preface is a variant
translation of the earlier-cited essay, “Speaking, Playing, Singing.”
24. Regarding synthesizers and the place of the Buchla synthesizer in their history, see Radice, Concert
Music, 248–52.
25. Leon Kirchner, prefatory notes for String Quartet No. 3 for Strings and Electronic Tape (New York:
Associated Music Publishers, 1971). The piece has been recorded by the Boston Composers' String Quartet
on Leon Kirchner: The Complete String Quartets (Albany Records CD Troy 137, 1994), [6].
26. Don Gillespie, ed., George Crumb: Profile of a Composer (New York: C. F. Peters, 1986), 17.
27. See Chou's essay “Ionisation: The Function of Timbre in its Formal and Temporal Organization,” in
The New World of Edgard Varèse: A Symposium, ed. Sherman Van Solkema (New York: Institute for
Studies in American Music, 1979), 27–74.
28. Chou Wen-chung, Echoes from the Gorge (New York: C. F. Peters, n.d. [1994]).
29. Chou's “Notes on Instruments” states that “many of the standard instruments called for in this score may
be substituted by non-Western instruments with similar sound characteristics and appropriate size (i.e., pitch
level).” In particular, the following equivalencies are indicated: claves = Chinese bangzi or Japanese
hyoshigi; wood blocks = Chinese nanbangzi; temple blocks = Chinese muyu; high and low Chinese small
tom-tom = xiaogu; tenor drum = Chinese tanggu or dagu; finger bells = xing (ling or pengzhong); Chinese
cymbal s= xiaoba; Chinese cymbals = nao and daba; low gong = Chinese shenboluo or gaobianluo. Chou's
“Notes on Instruments” includes the cryptic observation that “only ‘authentic’ instruments are to be used.”
30. For a brief analysis of Echoes, see Kenneth Kwan, “Chou Wen-chung's Echoes from the Gorge (1989),”
Chinese Music 18, nos. 3 and 4 (1995), 56–58, 74–78. Kwan has recently completed a more detailed
analysis of Echoes that will appear in a collection of essays currently being edited by Mark A. Radice and
Mary I. Arlin, forthcoming. Concerning the concept of “transethnicism,” see David Nicholls,
“Transethnicism and the American Experimental Tradition,” Musical Quarterly 80 (Winter 1996), 569–94.
31. The information in this paragraph is derived in part from Peter M. Chang, Chou Wen-chung: The Life
and Work of a Contemporary Chinese-Born American Composer (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2006),
120.
32. The Tao-te ching (Pinyin Dao de ching) “first emerged in a period of Chinese history called the Warring
States (570–221 B.C.E.).” Livia Kohn and Michael La-Fargue, eds., Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1998), 3. Some scholars have argued that the Tao-te ching is not the
work of a single author; moreover, the very identity of the historical Lao-tzu has been questioned. See
A[ngus] C[harles] Graham, “The Origins of the Legend of Lao Tan” and Livia Kohn, “The Lao-tzu Myth,”
in Kohn and LaFargue, 23–40, 41–62. English spellings vary: Lao-tzu, Laozi, Laotse, Lao-zu, and Lao-
tsu—in that order—are the most common.Page 344 →
33. Laozi, Dao de jing: The Book of the Way, based on the trans. with commentary by Moss Roberts
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 116.
34. Roberts, ibid., 60.
35. Roberts, ibid., 117.
36. Roberts, ibid.
37. In fact, the note values are not at all “arbitrarily selected”; a comparison of meter signatures across the
four percussionists' parts will show that they, too, are chosen for their structural significance.
38. Measure numbers are also continuous.
39. Kwan, “Chou Wen-chung's Echoes from the Gorge,” 75.
40. This is a slightly different presentation of the material explained by Kwan, ibid., 76.
41. Chang, Chou Wen-chung, 152, actually states that the first movement “can stand alone as a separate
quartet.” This was never Chou's intention (phone conversation, 8 October 2010).
42. See Eric C. Lai, The Music of Chou Wen Chung (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2009), 65–72.
43. Chou Wen-chung, String Quartet No. 2, Streams ([New York]: Spiralis Archival Editions, 2003), v.
Chou's compositions bear the Spiralis imprint until—after rehearsals, performances, and corrections—he is
satisfied that the music is in final form and ready to be issued by C. F. Peters, which has been his publisher
throughout his career.
Page 345 →

Index
Family names including particles (e.g., de, dei, des, la, van, von) will be listed under the principal word in the
name (e.g., Rue, Pierre de la). Umlauts are not reckoned in alphabetization, which is letter-by-letter. Page numbers
in italics contain relevant musical examples.

A, B, E, G (motif), 260

Abendmusiken, 22

“Aberystwyth,” 235

“Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin,” 211

Adam, Adolphe, 86

Adamowski, Josef, 242

Adamowski, Timothée, 242

Adams, John, 287–88, 303, 310

John's Book of Alleged Dances, string quartet, electronically altered sounds, 287, 303

Road Movies, violin, piano, 288, 297

Shaker Loops, three violins, viola, two celli, double bass, 287, 310

Les adieux. See Beethoven, Ludwig van, Sonatas: piano, Op. 81a

Adler, Guido, 116, 331n1

Adler, Samuel, 269

“The Adventures of a Dentist.” See Schnittke, Alfred

Akoka, Henri, 280

Alban Berg Gesellschaft, 260

Albrechtsberger, Johann Georg, 38, 86, 323n24

Aldegurgh Festival, 240

Allegri, Gregorio, 34, 319n8

“Allein,” 244

“All hail the pow'r of Jesus' name!” See “Coronation”

Almenraeder, Carl, 85

Also sprach Zarathustra. See Strauss, Richard

Amadeus Quartet, 239

Amar, Licco, 217, 218, 223

Amar Quartet, 217

Amati, 15

American Brass Quintet, 269

American Quartet. See Dvo ák, Antonín, Quartets: strings, Op.96

“Am Meer,” 150

Gli amori di Teolinda. See Meyerbeer, Giacomo

Amsterdam, 31

Andante festivo. See Sibelius, Jean, Quartets: strings

An die ferne Geliebte. See Beethoven, Ludwig van

André, Johann, 27

Page 346 →

André, Johann [Jean] Anton, 27, 44, 58, 88, 110

“And They Shall Reign Forever.” See Leeuv, Ton de

“Anima mea liquefacta est.” See Schütz, Heinrich

Anna Magdalena Klavierbüchlein. See Bach, Johann Sebastian

Apollon Quartet, 340n6

Apponyi Quartets. See Haydn, Franz Joseph, Quartets: strings, Opp. 71, 74

d'Arányi, Jelly, 188, 201

Archduke Trio. See Beethoven, Ludwig

Arensky, Anton, 190

Arnshtam, Leo, 250

Arnstadt, 22

Neue Kirche, 22

Ars nova, 281, 295

Artaria, Domenico[e Fratelli], 27, 28, 36, 40, 45, 51, 69, 78, 94, 318n12, 320n45

Arthur P. Schmidt, 242, 244, 337n27, 337n31

Art of the Fugue. See Bach, Johann Sebastian

Arutiunian, Alexander, 261, 262

Poem-Sonata, violin, piano, 262

Retro-Sonata, viola, piano, 262

Suite: clarinet, violin, piano, 262

Suite: wind quintet, 262

As If. See Lansky, Paul

Aspelmayr, Franz, 36

Atlanta Virtuosi, 272

“Attendite, popule meus.” See Schütz, Heinrich

Auber, Daniel François Esprit, 117

Auf dem Strom. See Schubert, Franz Peter

Augsburg, 26, 27, 31, 61

Auschwitz, 263

“Autumn,” 332n20

B, A, C, H (motif), 129, 132, 257

Babbitt, Milton, 275, 292, 295, 341n3

Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel, 24, 26, 80, 317n3, 323n23, 323n24

Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments. See Versuch über die wahre Art das Klavier zu spielen

Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber, 26

Versuch über die wahre Art das Klavier zu spielen, 26, 80, 317n3, 323n23

Bach, Johann Christian, 28, 115

Bach, Johann Sebastian, 1, 8, 16, 18, 19, 22, 24, 49, 94, 102, 117, 118, 129, 132, 133, 146, 147, 149, 157, 176,
209, 225, 254, 256, 279, 296, 304, 317n23, 320n51, 326n3

Anna Magdalena Klavierbüchlein, 22

Art of the Fugue, 296

B-minor Mass, 8

Brandenburg Concertos, 1

Chaconne: violin solo, D minor, S. 1004, 152

Ich habe genug, S. 82, basso, oboe, strings, basso continuo, 22, 312

Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, S. 21

Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, S. 51, soprano, trumpet, strings, basso continuo, 23, 312
Musikalisches Opfer, S. 1079, flute, violin, cello, basso continuo, 304, 316n17

Sonatas: G major, S. 1039, two flutes, basso continuo, 19, 301; G major, S. 1027, viola da gamba, basso continuo,
19, 297

St. Matthew Passion, 129

“Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit,” 311

Well-Tempered Klavier, 24, 94, 147, 147, 149, 225, 279

Bach, Wilhelm Friedemann, 23

Bach Gesellschaft, 129, 146, 147

Baden-Baden, 284

Baermann, Carl, 125

Baermann, Heinrich Joseph, 125

Bailleux, Antoine, 27, 37, 318n9

Baillot, Pierre, 107, 117

Baines, Anthony, 84, 85

Balakiereff, Mily, 196

Ballets Russes, 186

Page 347 →

Baltimore, 224

Banchieri, Adriano, 10, 11, 316n9

bandora 5, 6, 7, 9

Barcelona, 236

Bardac, Emma, 180

Bartók, Béla, 71, 74, 188, 198, 199–202, 232, 236, 237, 259, 263, 264, 265, 270, 273, 277, 288, 297, 301, 322n13,
332n15, 332n16, 341n6, 341n7, 342n8

Concerto: piano, No. 3, 71–72

Contrasts, violin, clarinet, piano, 200, 202, 301

Duos: forty-four, two violins, 200, 297

Quartets: strings, 200, 270, 304; No. 1 (1909), 203; No. 2 (1917); No. 3 (1927); No. 4 (1929), 201, 278; No. 5
(1934); No. 6 (1939)

Rhapsodies: violin, piano, 200, 297; No. 1 (1928); No. 2 (1928)

Serbo-Croatian Folk Songs, 200

Sonata: two pianos, percussion (2 players), 200, 202, 277

Sonatas: violin, piano, 200, 201, 297; No. 1 (1921), 202, 259; No. 2 (1922), 259

bas, 5, 6

Basel, 277, 279

Bassett, Leslie

Quintet: brass (1988), 269, 307

Baudelaire, Charles

Les fleurs du mal, 221

Harmonie du soir, 187

Bayon, Marie-Emmanuelle, 28, 318n10

BBC. See British Broadcasting Corporation

Beach, Amy, 225, 242–44

“Allein,” Op. 35, No. 2, 244

Eskimos, 244

Gaelic Symphony, 242

Quartet: strings, A minor, Op. 89, 243–44

Quintet: flute, string quartet, Theme and [6] Variations, Op. 80, 242

Quintet: piano, strings, F-sharp minor, Op. 67, 243

Sonata: violin, piano, A minor, Op. 34 (also flute, piano), 242–43

Trio: piano, strings, A minor, Op. 150, 244

Beach, Henry Harris Aubrey, 242

“Beautiful River,” 332–33n20

Becker, Albert, 229

Becker, Carl Friedrich, 129

Becker, Jean, 192

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1, 27, 29, 34, 35, 37, 38, 49, 54, 59, 62–82

An die ferne Geliebte, 150

Archduke Trio, Op. 97. See Trios, piano

Concerto: C minor, Op. 37, 103; C major, Op. 56, 81

Eroica Symphony. See Symphonies: No. 3

Fidelio, 83, 94

Grosse Fuge, Op. 133, 62, 69, 239, 260

Les adieux Sonata. See Sonatas, piano, Op. 81a

Missa solemnis, 69, 81

Moonlight Sonata. See Sonata, piano, Op. 27, No. 2

Pathetique Sonata. See Sonata, piano, Op. 13

Quartets: strings, 304; Op. 18 Nos. 1–6, 37, 62–64, 72; Op. 59, Nos. 1–3, Razumovsky Quartets, 62, 64–66, 72;
Op. 74, Harp Quartet, 62, 67–68; Op. 95, Quartetto serioso, 67–68; Op. 127, 62, 69, 70–74; Op. 131, 62, 69,
71–74; Op. 132, 62, 69, 71–76; Op. 130, 62, 69, 72–74; Op. 135, 62, 69

Septet: Op. 20, clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, double bass, 310

Sonata: violin, piano, Op. 96, 297

Sonatas: cello, piano, Op. 5, 49, 297

Sonatas: piano, C minor, Pathetique, Op. 13, 177, 260; C-sharp minor, Moonlight, Op. 27, 135, 252; No. 2; E-flat
major, Les adieux, Op. Page 348 →81a, 81, 259; A-flat major, Op. 110, 252; C minor, Op. 111, 81

Symphonies: No. 3, Eroica, 84; Symphonies: No. 6, F major, Pastorale Symphony, Op. 68, 258

Trio: B-flat, clarinet, cello, piano, Op. 11, 301

Trios: piano, 301; Op. 1, Nos. 1–3, 76, 78–79; Op. 70, Nos. 1, 2,, 79–80; Op. 97 Archduke Trio, 80–81

Trios: strings, 301; Op. 3, 34; Op. 9, 34

Beethoven Quartet, 246, 248, 252

Berberian, Cathy, 283

Berg, Alban, 209, 220–22

Concerto: violin, 254

Four pieces: clarinet, piano, Op. 5, 220–21

Quartets: strings, No. 1, Op. 3, 220; No. 2, Lyric Suite, 220, 221–22

Berg, Isaak Albert, 97

Berger, Ludwig, 122, 124

Bergmann, Carl, 148–49

Berio, Luciano, 277, 279, 282

Chamber Music, mezzo-soprano, clarinet, cello, harp, 283–84

Linea, two pianists, vibraphone, marimba, 277–78

Berkshire Festival of Chamber Music, 219

Berkshire Music Festival, 283

Berlin, 49, 88, 102, 103, 120, 122, 125, 129, 206, 224, 229

Singakademie+, 168

Berlioz, Hector, 2, 86, 117

Symphonie fantastique, 115

Berne, 31

Bernstein, Leonard

Quintet: brass, Dance Suite (1990; optional percussion), 269, 307

“Bethany,” 208

“Beulah Land,” 332n20

Billroth, Theodor, 160, 329n64

Bilthoven Contemporary Music Festival Prize, 267

Bizet, Georges, 330n8

Blech Quartet, 235

Bloch, Ernst, 285

Blondel, M. A., 187

Bocklet, Carl Maria von, 97

Boguslavsky, Igor, 253

Böhm, Joseph, 70

Bologna, 16, 31

Bonn, 86, 117, 129, 323n7

Bordes-Pène, Léontine, 177

Borisovsky, Vadim, 248, 338n14

Borodin, Alexander, 196

Borodin Quartet, 257

Boston, 193, 241, 242, 243, 337n27

Association Hall, 241

Chickering Hall, 242

Steinert Hall, 243

Bouffil, Jacques-Jules, 86

Boulaire, Jean Lee, 280

Boulanger, Nadia, 184, 266, 267

Boulez, Pierre, 264, 277, 279, 282, 283

“Incises,” 279

Le marteau sans maître, alto voice, alto flute (i.e., G), guitar, vibraphone, xylorimba, percussion, viola, 284–85

Sur incises, three pianos, three harps, three percussionists, vibraphones, marimba, steel drums, crotales,
glockenspiel, timpani, tubular bells, 277, 279

Brahms, Johannes, 2, 60, 97, 98, 110, 116, 139, 140, 146–70

Chorale Preludes, Op. 122, 167

Concerto: piano, orchestra, No. 2, B-flat major, Op. 82, 167

Concerto: violin, orchestra, D major, Op. 77, 161

Quartet: piano, strings, 304; G minor, Op. 25, 151, 304; A major, Op. 26, 148, 303; C minor,Page 349 → Op. 60,
159, 304

Quartets: strings, 304; C minor, Op. 51, No. 1, 147–48, 158–59; A minor, Op. 51, No. 2, 147–48, 158–59; B-flat,
Op. 67

Quintet: clarinet, strings, B minor, Op. 115, 167, 168, 308

Quintet: piano, strings, F minor, Op. 34, 153, 308

Quintet: strings, F major, Op. 88, 148, 162, 166, 170, 308; G major, Op. 111, 166, 167, 170, 308

Quintet: two pianos, Op. 34b, 154

Sextet: strings, B-flat major, Op. 18, 148, 151, 153, 310

Sonata: cello, piano, F major, Op. 99, 148, 164, 297

Sonatas: clarinet, piano, F minor, Op. 120, No. 1, E-flat major, Op. 120, 148, 167, 297; No. 2, 148, 167, 297

Sonatas: violin, piano, FAE Scherzo, 147, 297; G major, Op. 78, 161, 297; A major, Op. 100, 164, 165, 166, 297;
D minor, Op. 108, 164, 166, 297

Trio: piano, clarinet, cello, Op. 114, 167, 168, 301

Trio: piano, violin, horn, E-flat major, Op. 40, 147, 152, 153, 156–57, 301

Trios: piano, strings, 301; B major, Op. 8, 148–50; C major, Op. 87, 161, 329n72; C minor, Op. 101, 164, 165

Variations on a Theme of Haydn, Op. 56a/b, 60, 167, 297

Bray, Eric, 236

Breitkopf, Johann Gottlob Immanuel, 27

Breitkopf und Härtel, 78, 103, 110, 121, 124, 129

Brentano Quartet, 295, 296

Breslau, 224

Bridge, Ethel, 237

Bridge, Frank, 235, 236, 237

“Bringing in the Sheaves,” 332n20

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 235

Britten, Benjamin, 225, 235–40

Death in Venice, 239

Lachrymae: Reflections on a Song of John Dowland, Op. 48, viola. Piano, 240, 298

Les illuminations, 237

Quartet: oboe, strings, Op. 2, 236, 304

Quartets: strings, 304; Rhapsody (1929), 236, 304; Quartettino (1930), 236, 304; String Quartet in D (1931), 236,
303; Alla marcia (1933), 236, 304; Three Divertimenti (1936), 236–37, 304; No. 1 D, 236, 304; No. 2 C, 236; No.
3 E, 236, 304

Quintet: strings, F minor, 236, 308

Sextet: winds, 235–36, 310

Sonata: cello, piano, C, Op. 65, 240, 298

Temporal Variations, oboe, piano, 236, 298

Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, 290

Britten Dejong, Villem van, 57

Brno, 199, 273

Brod, Max, 198

broken consort, 8, 9, 315n5

broken music, 315n5

Bruch, Max, 232

Bruck, Austria, 59

Brunswick, 107, 108, 325

Brussels, 31, 176, 267

Cercle Artistique, 176

B. Schott's Söhne, 69, 87, 97, 98

Buchla, Donald, 343n24

Buchla synthesizer, 286

Buck, Dudley, 204

Budapest, 200, 203, 263, 264

Academy of Science, 200

Conservatory, 199

Buisine, 6

Bull, Ole, 194

Bülow, Hans von, 166

Buonamente, Giovanni Battista, 17

Burney, Charles, 24

Busoni, Ferruccio, 229

Page 350 →

Bussine, Romain, 174

Buxtehude, Dieterich, 21, 22

O dulcis Jesu, BuxWV 83, two sopranos, two violins, basso continuo, 22, 308

Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, BuxWV 98, violin, soprano, basso continuo, 21, 301

Byrd, William, 13, 14

Cage, John, 289, 339n28

First Construction in Metal, 6 percussionists, 289, 310

Quartet: percussion (1935), 289

Second Construction, 4 percussionists, 289, 304

Third Construction, 4 percussionists, 289, 304

Caltabiano, Ronald, 225

Cambini, Giuseppe Maria Gioacchino, 35, 57, 83–85

Trois quintetti, Livre 1, 308

Cambridge, 232
Canale, Florio, 10

canzona, 9, 10–11, 16, 21, 137, 163, 286, 315n7

Capriccio, 12, 13

Carl Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke, 107

Carreño, Teresa, 243

Carter, Elliott, 269

Cascioli, Gianluca, 279

Casella, Alfredo, 188, 189

Casper, Walter, 217

cassation, 32, 33, 34, 55, 56, 75

Castillon, Alexis de, 174

Cavalli, Francesco, 287

Cazzati, Maurizio, 11

Center for U.S.-China Arts Exchange, 291

Ceremonial. See Chou Wen-chung

C. F. Peters, 69, 78

Chabrier, Emmanuel, 184, 186

Chadwick, George Whitefield, 225, 240–42, 243

Quartets: strings, 241, 304; No. 1, G minor (1878), 241; No. 2, C major (1879), 241; No. 3, D (1885), 241; No. 4,
E minor, 241–42; No. 5, D minor, 241, 242

Quintet: piano, strings, E-flat, 242, 308

Rip van Winkle, 241

Chang Yi-an, 295

Chappell and Cramer, 113

Char, René, 284

Chausson, Ernest, 179

Cheny, Amy Marcy. See Beach, Amy

Cheny, Clara, 242, 243

Cherubini, Luigi, 38, 94, 113, 117

chest of viols, 9
Chezy, Wilhelmine von, 94, 95

chitarrone, 5, 6, 7

Chopin, Frédéric, 105, 110, 130–31, 142, 191

Ballade No. 2, Op. 38, 130–31

Chou Wen-chung, 289, 290–96

Ceremonial, three trumpets, three trombones, 294

Contrapunctus Variabilis, string quartet, 296

Cursive, flute, piano, 293–94

Echoes from the Gorge, percussion, 4 players, 289, 290–93, 294

Eternal Pine, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, percussion (one player) bass drum, four tom-toms, two dome
cymbals, two crash cymbals, cncerro, bell, 296

Metaphors, wind orchestra, 292

Quartets: strings, No. 1, Clouds (1966), 295; No. 2, Streams (2002),, 295–96

Suite: harp, wind quintet, 293, 310

Three Folk Songs, harp, flute, 293

Twilight Colors, flute/alto flute, oboe/English horn, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, 296

Windswept Peaks, violin, cello, clarinet, piano, 294–95

Yü Ko, violin, alto flute, English horn, bass clarinet, trombone, bass trombone, piano, two percussionists, 294

Page 351 →

Christiana Augusta, Queen of Sweden, 16, 19

Christiansen, Christian, 228

Chrysander, Friedrich, 116, 147

Cima, Giovanni Paolo, 17

Cincinnati Conservatory, 224

cittern, 6, 9

Claudius, Matthias, 99

clavichord, 6, 28, 294

Clavierschule. See Türk, Daniel Gottlob

Clementi, Muzio, 27

Introduction to the Art of Playing on the Piano Forte, 26

Cliquenois, Maurice, 267

Clouds. See Chou Wen-chung, Quartets: strings, No. 1

Cluj Conservatory, 263

Cobbett, Walter Wilson, 233, 234, 236, 336n10

Cobbett Competition, 233, 236, 336n11

Cohn, James, 271

Concerto da camera for violin, piano, woodwind quintet, Op. 60, 271, 310

Collection complette des quatuors d'Haydn dédiée au Premier Consul Bonaparte, 54

Colloredo, Hieronymus, Prince Archbishop of Salzburg, 44, 56

Cologne, 256, 264

Columbia University, 200, 291, 294

“Come, Thou fount of every blessing,” 208, 332n20

Compère, Loyset, 10

concertino, 18, 32, 33

concerto, 1, 2, 16, 18, 23, 32, 34, 81, 106, 107, 187, 219, 310

Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, 85

Consort, 6, 7, 8–9, 13, 14, 315n5

Contrapunctus Variabilis. See Chou Wen-chung

Coolidge String Quartet, 237

Copenhagen, 97, 225, 228

Copenhagen Wind Quintet, 228

Copland, Aaron, 225

Coprario, Giovanni, 13

cor anglais, 228, 265

Corelli, Archangelo, 15, 16–17

Cornell University, 267, 271, 341n9

cornetto, 6, 21, 310, 312

Cornish, William, 8

“Coronation,” 206
Costallat, 87

Couperin, François, 18, 180

Cramer, Johann Baptist, 102, 113

Cremona, 15, 31

Cristofori, Bartolomeo, 25

Crossworks. See Lansky, Paul

“Crug-y-bar,” 235

Crumb, George, 277, 288–89

Black Angels, string quartet, maracas, tam-tam, water-tuned goblets, amplification, 288–89, 304

Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III; 1974), two amplified pianos, percussion, 2 players, 278–79, 304

Vox bal n , flute, cello, piano, lighting, costumes, 288, 301

crumhorn, 6

Cui, Cesar, 196

Cursive. See Chou Wen-chung

curtel, 6

Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, 266

D, S, C, H (motif), 250, 260

da camera, 13, 15–18, 271, 310

da chiesa, 13, 15–16, 43, 163, 176

Dallapiccola, Luigi, 283

Dalza, Joan Ambrosio, 12

Danbury, Connecticut, 204

Dancla, Jean-Baptiste-Charles, 107

Danzi, Franz, 86, 88–89

Quintets: flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, Op. 56, 88–89; Op. 67, 88; Op. 68, 88

Darmstadt, 264, 267

Dauprat, Louis-François, 86, 323n8

David, Ferdinand, 124

Page 352 →
Davidovsky, Mario, 287, 288

Synchronisms: 287; flute, electronics, No. 1, 298; flute, clarinet, violin, cello, electronics, No. 2, 308; cello,
electronics, No. 3, 298; percussion, electronics, No. 5, 298; piano, electronics, No. 6, 298; wind quintet,
electronics, No. 8, 310; violin, electronics, No. 9, 298; guitar, electronics, No. 10, 298

Davies, Peter Maxwell, 14, 269

Quintets: brass (1981), 308; Two Motets; Pole Star, 308

“Death and the Maiden,” 91. See also Schubert, Franz Peter, Quartets: D minor, D. 810

Death and Transfiguration. See Strauss, Richard

Death in Venice. See Britten, Benjamin

Debussy, Claude, 3, 178–82, 186, 188, 221, 255, 274, 288

En blanc et noir, 2 pianos, 298

Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, 179

Quartet: strings, G minor, Op. 10, 178, 179, 304

Sonata: cello, piano, 178, 180–82, 298

Sonata: flute, viola, harp, 178, 180–82, 301

Sonata: violin, piano, 178, 180–82, 298

Trio: piano, strings (1880), 178–79, 301

Dehmel, Richard, 210, 211

Dejean, Ferdinand, 57

Delizie contente che l'alme beate. See Druckman, Jacob

Denisov, Edison, 248, 252–54, 256, 338n20, 338n28

“Diane dans le vent d'automne,” viola, piano, vibraphone, double bass, 253, 304

Es ist genug, viola, piano, 254, 298

Quartet: flute, violin, viola, cello, 253, 304

Quartet: strings, No. 2, 253, 304

Quintet: clarinet, strings, 253, 308

Quintet: piano, strings, 253, 308

Quintet: wind, 253, 308

Romantische Musik, oboe, violin, viola, cello, harp, 253, 308

Sonata: alto saxophone, piano (1970), 253, 298

Sonata: clarinet, piano (1993), 253, 298

Sonata: flute, piano (1960), 253, 298

Sonata: violin, piano (1963), 253, 298

Suite: cello, piano (1961), 253, 298

Three Pictures after Paul Klee, oboe, horn, piano, vibraphone, viola, double bass, 253–54, 311

Trio: oboe, cello, harpsichord,, 253–54, 301

“Devil's Trill Sonata.” See Tartini, Giuseppe

Diabelli, Anton, 97

Diaghilev, Serge, 186

“Diane dans le vent d'automne.” See Denisov, Edison

Dies ir , 289

Dijon, 31

Los Dioses Aztecas, Op. 107. See Read, Gardner

Diptyque. See Messiaen, Olivier

Dissonance Quartet. See Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Quartets, strings, K. 465

Dittersdorf, Karl Ditter von, 36, 38, 45, 102

divertimento, 32–33, 34, 55, 60–61, 75, 76, 87, 240

Division-Violist, 13

Doctor Faustus: The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn as Narrated by Friends. See Mann, Thomas

dodecaphony, 212, 333n11

Dohnányi, Ernö, 200, 332n14

“Domine, labia mea aperies.” See Schütz, Heinrich

Donaueschingen, 31, 217, 223, 267

Dongresová-Husová, Božena, 266

Page 353 →

Downes, Olin, 232, 333n11

Dreililien Verlag, 210

Dresden, 111, 133, 250

Droysen, Johann Gustav, 122

Druckman, Jacob, 287

Delizie contente che l'alme beate, wind quintet, electronic sounds, 287, 311

Other Voices, brass quintet, 269, 308

Druzhinin, Fyodor, 252, 260, 338n14

Dubois, Théodore, 330n8

dulcian. See curtel

dulcimer, 6, 7

Duparc, Henri, 184

Durand, 187

Dusek, Frantisek Xavier, 36

Dushkin, Samuel, 275

Dussek, Jan Ladislav, 28, 102, 103

Düsseldorf, 125

Dvo ák, Antonín,189, 190–94, 241, 242

Quartets: strings, 305; D minor, Op. 34, B75, 191; E-flat, Op. 51, B92, 192, 191; F, Op. 96, B179, American
Quartet, 191, 192–93, 241; G major, Op. 106, B192, 194; A-flat Quartet, Op. 105, B193, 194

Quintets: piano, strings, 308; A-major, Op. 81, B155, 193–94

Quintets: strings, 308; A minor (1861), 191; G major, Op. 77, B49 (bass), 190–91; E-flat, Op. 97, B180, 192, 193

Sextet: strings (2, 2, 2), A major, Op. 48, B80, 311

Sonatina: violin, piano, 191

Terzetto: strings, violins, viola, 191

Trio: piano, strings, F minor, Op. 65, B130, 193; Dumky Trio, Op. 90, B166 (also for piano, four hands), 192, 193,
194

Dwight's Journal of Music, 241

Eastman School of Music, 4, 268

Eccard, Johann, 147

Echoes from the Gorge. See Chou Wenchung

Echo Sonata, Hob. II/39. See Haydn, Franz Joseph

Einstein, Alfred, 57, 77

Élégie et rondeau, saxophone, piano. See Husa, Karel

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 208

Empfindsamkeit, 33

Endenich, 129

Enesco (also as Enescu), Georges, 184, 188

Enescu, George. See Enesco, Georges

English Folk Dance Society, 25

Erard, 103, 171, 187, 330n8

Erard, Sébastien, 187

Erdödy Quartets. See Haydn, Franz Joseph, Quartets: strings, Op. 76

Erlkönig. See Schubert, Franz Peter

Eroica Symphony. See Beethoven, Ludwig van, Symphonies: No. 3

“Es ist genug,” 254, 298

Eskimos. See Beach, Amy

Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments. See Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Versuch über die wahre
Art das Klavier zu spielen

Esterházy, 93, 115

Marie, Princess, 34

Evian, 259, 260

Evocations de Slovaquie. See Husa, Karel

fancy. See ricercar

fantasia. See ricercar

Faraday, Michael, 115

Farkas, Ferenc, 263

Farrenc, Louise, 175

Quintets: piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, 308; A minor, Op. 30; E major, Op. 31

Farthing, Thomas, 8

Fauré, Gabriel, 183–86

Quartet: strings, E major, Op. 121, 183, 185, 305

Quartets: piano, strings, 183, 305; C major, Op. 15, 183, 305; G major, Op. 45, 183, 305

Page 354 →
Quintets: piano, strings, 308; D major, Op. 89, 184–85; C major, Op. 115, 183

Requiem, 184

Sonata: cello, piano, D major, Op. 109, 183, 298; G major, Op. 117, 183, 298

Sonata: violin, piano, A major, Op. 13, 183, 184, 298; E major, Op. 108, 183, 298

Trio: piano, strings, D major, Op. 120, 183, 301

Faust Symphonie. See Liszt, Franz

Feigin, Valentin, 260

Felumb, Svend Christian, 228

Ferdinand, Archduke Francis, 197

Ferkelman, Arnold, 246

Ferrabosco, Alfonso, 13, 14

Ferrari, Jacopo Gotifredo, 29, 30

Fête des belles eaux. See Messiaen, Olivier

Feuillard, Louis, 187

Fiesole, 178

“Fili mi, Absalon.” See Schütz, Heinrich

Finck, Henry Theophilus, 206

Fine Arts Quartet, 269

“Finlandia.” See Sibelius, Jean

First Construction in Metal. See Cage, John

Fitz, Richard, 279

Five Days and Five Nights, 250

Les fleurs du mal. See Baudelaire, Charles

Fleyshman, Veniamin, 247

Rothschild's Violin, 247

Flodin, Karl, 229

Florence, 31, 196, 236, 310

Florentine Quartet, 192

“Flow, my tears,” 240

“Die Forelle,” 91

Foote, Arthur, 225, 241, 243, 244

Quartet: piano, strings, C, 244, 305

Quartet: strings, 244, 305; No. 1. G minor; No. 2, E; No. 3, D

Quintet: Nocturne and Scherzo, flute, string quartet, 244, 308

Quintet: piano, strings, A minor, 244, 308

Sonata: violin, piano, G minor, 244, 298

Trios: piano, strings, 244, 302; No. 1, C minor; No. 2, B

fortepiano, 25, 29

“Frage,” 122

Franck, César, 74, 86, 117, 172–78, 179

Grand pièce symphonique, 244

Prelude, Fugue, and Variation, 185

Quartet: strings, D major, 175,, 177–78, 305

Quintet: piano, strings, F minor,, 175–76, 308

Sonata: violin (flute), piano, A major, 175, 176–77, 298

Trios: piano, strings, 172–74, 302; Op. 1, Nos. 1–3, F-sharp minor, B-flat major, B-minor; B minor; Op. 2
(=original finale of Op. 1, No. 3)

Frank, Maurits, 217, 218

Frankfurt, 31, 109, 267

Frauenliebe und Leben. See Schumann, Robert

Freeman, James, 279

Der Freischütz. See Weber, Carl Maria von

Frescobaldi, Girolamo, 13, 163, 316n11

Friedrich Christian Ludwig, Prince of Prussia, 102–6

Andante with Variations, piano quartet, Op. 4, 106, 305

Larghetto variée, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, 106, 309

Notturno, flute, violin, viola, cello, piano, two horns, Op. 8, 106, 310

Quartets: piano, strings, 103, 305; E-flat major, Op. 5; F minor, Op. 6, 105

Quintet: piano, strings, C minor, Op. 1, 103, 104, 105, 309

Page 355 →
Trios: 103, 302; A-flat major, piano, strings, Op. 2; E-flat major, Op. 3; E-flat major, Op. 10

Friedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia, 48, 49

Frisch, Walter, 160

“From Greenland's icy mountains” (“Missionary Hymn”), 206

Fromme, Arnold, 269

"

“From My Life.” See Smetana, Bed ich, Quartets: strings, No. 1 in E minor

Fuchs, Robert, 229

Fuchs-Robettin, Hanna, 221

full consort, 7, 8–9, 13

Fux, Johann Joseph, 38

Gradus ad Parnassum, 38, 320n38, 323n24

Gabrieli, Giovanni, 20

Gade, Niels, 225–26

Galitzin, Prince Nicholay Borisovich, 69

Galliard, 8, 9

The Gamblers. See Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitriyevich

Gebrauchsmusik, 223

Gédalge, André, 186, 187

Geiringer, Karl, 160, 163, 166, 168

Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ, 128

Geminiani, Francesco, 16

Geneva, 31, 224

Genoveva. See Schumann, Robert

George, Earl, 273

George, Stefan, 212, 221

Gershkovich, Filip, 256

Gershwin, George

Rhapsody in Blue, 257

Gerstl, Richard, 212

Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. See Vienna

Ghost Trio. See Beethoven, Ludwig van, Trios, piano, Op. 70

Gibbons, Orlando, 8, 13, 14

“Glass Accordion.” See Khrzhanovsky, Andrei

Glazunoff Quartet, 245, 246, 338n7

Glickman, Isaak, 250

Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich, 195

Trio pathétique, clarinet, bassoon, piano, 195

Gli scherzi. See Haydn, Franz Joseph, Quartets, strings, Op. 33

“Glorious things of thee are spoken,” 53

Gluck, Christoph Willibald, 94, 102, 113

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 118

Goldmark, Karl, 229

Goode, Richard, 271

Goodman, Benny, 202

Goosens, Leon, 236

Görlitz, Silesia, 279

“Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser,” 53

Gradus ad Parnassum. See Fux, Johann Joseph

Graf, Conrad, 153

Grandi, Alessandro, 20

Grand pièce symphonique. See Franck, César

Grawemeyer Award, 279

Grenser, Friedrich Wilhelm, 124

Grieg, Edvard, 194, 206, 229

Quartet: strings, G minor, Op. 27, 195, 305

Sonata: cello, piano, A minor, Op. 36, 195, 298

Sonatas: violin, piano, 195, 298; F major, Op. 8; G major, Op. 13; C minor, Op. 45
Griffiths, Paul, 64, 98, 130, 281, 319n27

Grinke, Frederick, 235

Grosse Fuge. See Beethoven, Ludwig van

Guadagnini, Giovanni Battista, 15, 107, 334n10

Guarneri, 15, 107, 334n10

Gubaidulina, Sophia, 248, 254–56, 339n20, 339n28

Five Etudes: harp, double bass, percussion, 256, 302

Garden of Joys and Sorrows, flute, viola, harp, 255, 302

Page 356 →

Hommage à T. S. Eliot, soprano, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violins 1, 2, viola, cello, double bass, 256, 312

In croce, cello, organ or cello, bayan, 254, 298

Offertorium, 256

Pantomime, double bass, piano, 256, 298

Quartets: strings, 256, 305; No. 1 (1971); No. 2 (1987); No. 3 (1987); No. 4 (1993)

Quasi hoquetus, viola, bassoon (or cello), piano, 256, 302

Quintet: Piano, strings (1957), 256

Der Seiltänzer, violin, piano, 254, 298

Seven Words, cello, bayan, strings, 254, 313

Sextet: Meditation on the Bach Chorale “Vor deinem Thron tret ich hiermit” harpsichord, string quintet, 256, 311

Sonata: Detto I, organ, percussion, 256, 298

Sonata: double bass, piano, 256, 298

Sonata: Rejoice!, violin, cello, 256, 298

Trio: strings (1989), violin, viola, cello, 256, 302

Guérin, Emmanuel, 107

Duos faciles, Op. 1, 298

Guillou, Joseph, 86

Guiraud, Ernest, 330n8

Habeneck, François Antoine, 107, 117

Hagemann, Paul, 228

Halberstadt Music Festival, 108

Halévy, Fromental, La reine de Chypre, 35, 319n29

Halir, Carl, 243

Hamburg, 153, 157

Hämeenlinna, Finland, 229

Hampel, Anton Joseph, 85

Handel, George Frideric, 16, 22, 49, 147

Hanover, 153, 154

Hanover Square Public Rooms, 52

Hans Heiling. See Marschner, Heinrich

Hanslick, Eduard, 2, 159, 160, 191, 193

“Happy Day,” 332n20

Harmoniae poeticae, 8

Harmonie du soir. See Baudelaire, Charles

Harmoniemusik, 59–61, 83, 195

harpsichord, 1, 6, 7, 15, 17, 25, 28, 29, 30, 180, 253, 254, 256, 258, 300, 301, 311, 316n17, 339n28

Harp Quartet. See Beethoven, Ludwig van, Quartets: strings, Op. 74

Harrell, Mack, 215

Harrison, Lou, 289

Suite: percussion (1942), 5 players, 289, 309

Härtel, Christoph, 27

Hartmann, Oluf, 227

Hauptmann, Moritz, 129, 327n17

Hausmann, Robert, 168

haut, 5

Haydn, Franz Joseph, 2, 27, 28, 35–42, 45, 46, 48,, 51–54, 55, 59, 60, 78, 79, 90, 93, 107, 113, 115, 117, 130, 167,
225, 317n7, 320n39, 323n7

Divertimentos: strings (2, 2, 2), 311, Hob. II/21, 36; II/22, 36; II/41, 60; II/42, 60; II/43, 60; II/44, 60; II/45, 60; II
/46, 60, 167; F7, 60

Echo Sonata, Hob. II/39, strings (2, 2, 2), 33, 311

Quartets: strings, 27, 35–36, 87, 305, 325n10; Op. 1, 36; Op. 2, 36; Op. 3 (spurious), 37, 54; Op. 9, 37; Op. 17, 37;
Op. 20 37–39, 45, 52, 211; Op. 28, 37; Op. 33, 36,, 39–42, 45, 52; Op. 50, 48; Op. 51 Seven Last Words of Christ
on the Cross, 51, 52; Opp. 54, 55, and 64, [12]Tost Quartets, 51–52; Opp. 71 and 74, [6]Apponyi Quartets, 51,
52, 53; Op. 76, [6]Erdödy Quartets, 51, 53, 54; Op. 77, [2]Lobkowitz Quartets, 51–52

Sonatas: piano, Hob. XVI/40–42, 27, 317n7

Symphonies: Hob. I/93–98, London Symphonies

Trios: piano, strings, 77, 78, 79, 80, 302; Hob. XV/6, 77; XV/7, 77; XV/8, 77; XV/39, 77; XV/41, 77

Page 357 →

Trios: strings, 33, 302; Hob. V/8, V/D6, V/E-flat 1, V/G 7, Op. 53, 34

Haydn, Michael, 38

Heifetz, Benar, 218

Heiligenstadt Testament, 115

Heldburg, Helene von, Baroness, 167

Ein Heldenleben. See Strauss, Richard

Hellmesberger Quartet, 160

Helsinki, 229

Henry VIII, King of England, 8

Henry, Antoine-Nicola, 86

Hensel, Fanny. See Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hensel, Fanny

Hermstedt, Johann Simon, 110

Herzogenberg, Elisabet von, 163, 329n64

Hindemith, Paul, 217, 218, 223

Octet: clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, two violas, cello, double bass (1958), 223

Quartet: clarinet, violin, piano, cello (1938), 223

Quartets: strings, 223; No. 1 (1915); No. 2 (1918); No. 3 (1920); No. 4 (1921); No. 5 (1923); No. 6 (1943); No. 7
(1945)

Quintet: clarinet, strings (1923; rev. 1954), 223

Septet: flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, horn, bass clarinet, bassoon (1948), 223

Sonata: alto saxophone, piano (E-flat, 1943), 223

Sonata: bassoon, piano (1938), 223

Sonata: cello, piano, Op. 11, No. 3 (1919, rev 1921); [Second] (1948), 223, 298
Sonata: clarinet, piano (1939), 223

Sonata: double bass, piano (1949), 223, 298

Sonata: English horn, piano (1941), 223

Sonata: four horns (1952), 223

Sonata: oboe, piano (1938), 223, 299

Sonata: trombone, piano (1941), 223, 299

Sonata: trumpet, piano (1939), 223, 299

Sonata: tuba, piano (1955), 223, 299

Sonatas: viola d'amore, piano, Op. 25, No. 2 (1922), 298, 299

Sonatas: horn (F, 1939; E-flat, 1943, also for alto saxophone), 223

Sonata: viola, piano, Op. 11, No. 4 (F major, 1919), 299; viola solo, No. 5 (1919); Op. 25, No. 4, 299

Sonatas: violin, piano, 223, 299; Op. 11, No. 1 (E-flat, 1918); No. 2 (D major, 1918); No. 3 (E, 1935); No. 4 (C,
1939)

Trios: strings, [First] (1924); [Second] 1933, 302

Trio: viola, heckelphone/saxophone, piano, 1928, 302

Der Hirt auf dem Felsen. See Schubert, Franz Peter

Hoffmeister, Franz Anton, 27, 28, 48, 49, 57, 62, 78, 319n31, 322n7

Hoffmeister Quartet. See Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Quartets: strings, K. 499

Hoffstetter, Romanus, 37

Hofhaimer, Paul, 8

Holborne, Anthony, 8

Hollywood String Quartet, 211

Holzbauer, Ignaz, 38

Honegger, Arthur, 266, 267

Hong Kong, 272

Himali, Jan, 196

Hudson River School, 296

Hummel, Johann Nepomuck, 296

Husa, Karel, 266–73, 340n5

Divertimento, brass quintet, percussion (optional), 269–70, 309, 311

Eight Czech Duets, piano, four hands, 270, 299

Élégie et rondeau, saxophone, piano, 299

Evocations de Slovaquie, clarinet, viola, cello, 302

Five Poems, woodwind quintet, 271

Landscapes, brass quintet, 270

Page 358 →

Music for Prague 1968, 266, 273

“Postcard from Home,” saxophone, piano, 299

Quartet: Variations, piano, violin, viola, cello, 272, 305

Quartets: strings, 305; Op. 2 (1943) “Nulty,” 266–67, 340n6; No. 1 (1948), 267; No. 2 (1953), 267, 268–69; No. 3
(1967), 269; No. 4, Poems (1989), 273

Quintet: brass. See Divertimento; Landscapes

Recollections, woodwind quintet, piano, 271

Sinfonietta, 266

Sonata: violin, piano, 271

Sonata a tre, clarinet, violin, piano, 272, 302

Twelve Moravian Songs, voice, piano, 299

Husová née Dongresová, Bozena, 266

Huxley, Aldous, 71, 74

Ich habe genug. See Bach, Johann Sebastian

I ching, 291, 292, 293

Idomeneo, Re di Creta. See Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

d'Indy, Vincent, 176, 177, 178, 184, 322n6

Les illuminations. See Britten, Benjamin

“Incises.” See Boulez, Pierre

“I need Thee every hour,” 332n20

Inganno, 12, 316n11

“In lectulo per noctes.” See Schütz, Heinrich

In nomine, 14

Innsbruck, 31
“In te, Domine, speravi.” See Schütz, Heinrich

International Composers' Guild, 277

International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), 204, 217, 219, 236, 267, 277, 341n7

Introduction to the Art of Playing on the Piano Forte. See Clementi, Muzio

Ionization. See Varèse, Edgar

Ireland, John, 235

Ischl, 167

ISCM. See International Society for Contemporary Music

Ithaca College, 269

“I've reached the land of corn and wine,” 332n20

Ives, Charles, 204–8

Concord Sonata, 205

“Decoration Day,” violin, piano, 205, 299

“From the Steeples and the Mountains,” trumpet, trombone, four sets of bells, 205, 311

“The Gong on the Hook and Ladder,” string quartet or quintet, piano, 205, 309

Largo, violin, clarinet, piano, 205, 302

“An Old Song Deranged,” clarinet/English horn, harp/guitar, violin/viola, viola, two celli, 205, 312

Prelude on “Eventide,” baritone/trombone, two violins, organ, 205, 305

Quartets: strings, 305; No. 1, 206; No. 2, 206–8; “Practice for String Quartet in Holding Your Own,” 205; Scherzo
for String Quartet, 205

Quintet: piano, strings, 205, 309; “Largo risoluto” Nos. 1 and 2, 205; “Halloween” (opt. percussion), 205; “In Re
con moto et al,” 205

“Scherzo: Over the Pavements” (1910; rev. 1927) piccolo, clarinet, bassoon/baritone saxophone, trumpet, three
trombones, cymbals, bass drum, piano, 205

Sonatas: violin, piano, 299; No. 1; No. 2; No. 3; No. 4

Symphony No. 4, 206

Trio: piano, strings (1911; rev. 1915), 205, 302

“Unanswered Question,” 206

Page 359 →

Jadassohn, Salomon, 241

Jahn, Otto, 129

Janá ek, Leos, 197–99, 236

Mládí, 236

Quartets: strings, 305; No. 1, The Kreuzer Sonata, 197–98; No. 2, Intimate Letters, 199

Sextet: winds, Youth, 198–99, 311, 332n11

Janá ek Music Festival, 273

Janet et Cotelle, 88

Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen. See Bach, Johann Sebastian

Jazz, 188, 253, 257, 275, 288

J. Curwen & Sons, 277

Jeanrenaud, Cécile, 124

Jenkins, John, 13

“Jesus Loves Me,” 332–333n20

Joachim, Joseph, 139, 147, 153, 154, 166, 167, 192

Joachim's Quartet, 167, 168, 169

John's Book of Alleged Dances. See Adams, John

The Joke, Op. 33, No. 2. See Haydn, Franz Joseph, Quartets: strings, Op. 33

Jones, Owen, 113

Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (i.e., Joseph Benedikt Anton Michael Adam), 59

Joseph Franz Maximilian, Prince of Lobkowitz, 62, 81

Josquin des Pres. See Pres, Josquin des

Jourdan-Morhange, Hélène, 188

Joyce, James, 283

“Jubilate Deo omnis terra.” See Schütz, Heinrich

Kalamazoo, Michigan, 270

Kalisch, Gilbert, 279

Kalkbrenner, Friedrich, 110

Kammel, Antonín,30

Karlsruhe, 156

Kassel, 109, 110, 111, 121

Kastner, Georges, 86
Kathleen Washbourne Trio, 219

Kavafian, Ani, 271

Kegelstatt Trio. See Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Trio: clarinet, viola, piano, E-flat. K. 498

Kerman, Joseph, 72, 73

Kerpely, Jeno, 201, 203

Keuris, Tristan

Divertimento, violin, piano, woodwind quintet, double bass, 271, 313

Khrennikov, Tikhon, 248

Khrzhanovsky, Andrei

“Glass Accordion,” 257

Kiesewetter, Raphael Georg, 116

King, A. Hyatt, 77

Kinsky, Ferdinand Johann Nepomuk, Prince, 81, 82

Kirchner, Leon, 285–86, 287

Duo: violin, cello, 285, 299

Duo: violin, piano, 285, 299

Quartets: strings, 285; No. 1 (1949); No. 2 (1958); No. 3 (1966), 286–87

Sonata concertante (1952), violin, piano, 285

Trios: piano, strings, 285; No. 1 (1954); No. 2 (1993)

Kirkpatrick, Gary, 262, 272

Kneisel, Franz, 241, 243

Kneisel Quartet, 193, 206, 241, 242, 243

Koch, Stefan, 85

Kódaly, Emma, 203

Kódaly, Zoltán, 188, 199–200, 203–4

Duo: violin, cello, Op. 7, 203–4, 299

Psalmus Hungaricus, 203

Quartets: strings, 203, 305; No. 1, Op. 2 (1909); No. 2, Op. 10 (1918), 204

Serenade: two violins, viola, Op. 12, 203, 204, 302

Sonata: cello, piano, Op. 4, 203, 299

Sonatina: cello, piano (1909), 203, 299

Koechlin, Charles, 184

Kogan, Leonid, 251

Kolisch, Gertrud, 213

Kolisch, Rudolf, 218, 219, 220

Page 360 →

Kolisch Quartet, 214, 219

Kössler, Hans, 200

Kotzeluch, Leopold, 25, 28, 90

Koussevitzky, Serge, 217

Koussevitzky Foundation, 271

Kraft, William, 290

Encounters, 290, 313; eleven percussion pieces, various scorings including tape, trumpet, trombone, saxophone,
English horn, violin, cello, roto-toms

Momentum, eight percussionists, 290, 313

Quartets: percussion, 290, 305; Theme and Variations (1956); Quartet (1988)

Kremer, Gidon, 256

Kreutzer, Rodolphe, 117

“The Kreuzer Sonata.” See Janá ek, Leoš

Krommer, Franz, 90, 319n31

Kronos Quartet, 3, 256

Krysa, Oleg, 260

Kubatsky, Victor, 246

Kvardi, Misha, 251

Lachner, Ferdinand, 193

Lachner, Franz, 101

Lachrymae: Reflections on a Song of John Dowland, Op. 48. See Britten, Benjamin

Lady Macbeth of the Mzensk District. See Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitriyevich

Lalo, Edouard, 174, 184

Lansky, Paul, 287

As If, violin, viola, cello, electronics, 287, 305

Crossworks, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, 287, 309

Quartets: strings, 287, 305; No. 1 (1967); No. 2 (1971)

Values of Time, wind quintet, string quartet, electronic sounds, 287, 313

Landon, Howard Chandler Robbins, 37

“Languishing in Prison,” 250

“Lasciate ch'io respiri, ombre gradite.” See Stradella, Alessandro

Lassen, Knud, 228

Laub, Ferdinand, 196

Lausanne, 31

Law on Religious Associations, 254

League of Composers, 215

Leclair, Jean-Marie, 180

Leeuv, Ton de, 271

“And They Shall Reign Forever,” mezzo-soprano, clarinet, French horn, piano, percussion, 271, 309

Lehner, Eugen, 218

Leipzig, 22, 23, 69, 97, 103, 124, 128, 129, 133, 153, 194, 224, 225, 229, 241, 242, 329n64

“Lement a nap a maga járásán,” 203

Leningrad, 246, 247, 251, 337n1

Leutgeb, Joseph Ignatz, 58, 321n12

Library of Congress, 237, 271

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. See Mahler, Gustav

Liège, 172

Ligeti, György, 263–66, 340n1

Musica ricercata, 263, 264

Quartets: strings, No. 1, Metamorphoses nocturnes, 264; No. 2 (1968), 265

Six Bagatelles, wind quintet, 264

Ten Pieces, wind quintet, 265

Trio: violin, horn, piano (1982), 265–66

Lili Boulanger Prize, 267

Linea. See Berio, Luciano Linke, Joseph, 70, 97

Liszt, Franz, 2, 86, 103, 110, 115, 117, 146, 171, 172, 189, 199, 201, 273, 341n2

Faust Symphonie, 199

Lithography, 27, 317n7

Litinsky, Genrik, 262

Lobkowitz, Prince. See Joseph Franz Maximilian, Prince of Lobkowitz

Page 361 →

Lobkowitz Quartets. See Haydn, Franz Joseph, Quartets: strings, Op. 77

Lodi, 31

Lodron, Countess Antonia, 56

Loft, Abram, 179, 316n15

London, 2, 9, 13, 14, 27, 31, 52, 54, 113, 128, 233, 283, 341n7

Aeolian Hall, 234

Hanover Square Public Rooms, 52

Royal College of Music, 232, 235

Scala Theatre, 235

St. James's Hall, 113

Wigmore Hall, 235, 238, 268

London String Quartet, 234

London Symphonies. See Haydn, Franz Joseph, Symphonies: Hob. I/93–98

Longman and Broderip, 27

Loos, Adolph, 219

Los Angeles, 214, 237, 290

Louis Ferdinand. See Friedrich Christian Ludwig, Prince of Prussia

Loviisa, Finland, 232

Löw, Johann, 219

Lübeck
Marienkirche, 22

Lubotsky, Mark, 260, 261

Ludewig-Verdehr, Elsa, 262

Luening, Otto, 269

Lute, 5, 6–7, 9, 12, 15, 17

Lutosawski, Witold, 261

Epitaph, oboe, piano, 261, 299

Grave, cello, piano, 261, 299

Partita: violin, piano, 261, 299

Quartet: strings, No. 1 (1964), 261, 306

Lyons, 9, 31

Lyric Suite. See Berg, Alban, quartets: strings

Lyric Symphony. See Zemlinsky, Alexander

MacDonald, Malcolm, 158, 160, 166

MacDowell Colony, 244

Maderna, Bruno, 287

Musica su due dimensioni, flute, cymbals, electronically altered sounds, 302

Mahler, Gustav, 105, 211, 230, 286, 340n32

Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, 260

Mainz, 31, 69, 87, 97

La malinconia. See Beethoven, Ludwig van, Quartets, strings, Op. 18

Mandyczewski, Eusebius, 147

Mangeot, André, 233, 236

Mann, Thomas, 215

Mannheim, 27, 31, 36, 38, 51, 58, 88

Mantua, 31

Marschalk, Max, 210

Marschner, Heinrich, 132

Hans Heiling, 133

Trio: piano, strings, G minor, Op. 111, 133, 302

Der Vampyr, 133

Marsick-Rémy-van Waefelghem-Loys Quartet, 175

Le marteau sans maître. SeeBoulez, Pierre

Martinû, Boh slav, 215

Maschera, Florentio, 10

Mason, Daniel Gregory, 148

Mason, Lowell, 208, 241

Mason, William, 148

Massenet, Jules, 179, 208, 330n8

Mathews, Charles Elkin, 283

Maximilian, Holy Roman Emperor, 8

Meck, Countess Nadezhda von, 178, 196

Meiningen, 167, 168

Mendelssohn, Fanny. See Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hensel, Fanny Cäcilie

Mendelssohn, Felix, 2, 77, 99, 101, 110, 112, 116–28, 129, 130, 132, 133, 135, 136, 139, 143, 146, 169, 194, 200,
225, 326n5

“Frage,” Op. 9, No. 1, 122, 123

Konzertstücke: clarinet, basset horn, piano, Opp. 113 and 114, 125, 302

Octet: strings, E-flat, Op. 20, 120, 313

Page 362 →

Quartets: piano, strings, 117–18, 306; Op. 1, C minor; Op. 2, F minor; Op. 3, B minor

Quartets: strings, 121, 306; E-flat, WoO, 117, 121; E-flat major, Op. 12, 122; A-minor, Op. 13, 122; Op. 44,
122–24, 130; No. 1, D-major; Op. 44, No. 2, E-minor; Op. 44, No. 3, E-flat major; F-minor, Op. 80, 124–25; E
major, Op. 81

Quintets: strings, 309; A major, Op. 18, 120; B-flat major, Op. 87, 126–28

Sextet: violin, two violas, cello, double bass, piano, D major, Op. 110, 118

Sonatas: cello, piano, 125–26, 229; B-flat, Op. 45; D, Op. 58

Sonatas: violin, piano, 118, 119, 299; F minor, Op. 4; F major (1838); C minor, viola, piano; E-flat, clarinet, piano

Symphony: No. 1 in C minor, Op. 11, 120; No. 4 in A major, Op. 90, 128

Trios: 302; piano, violin, viola, C minor, 121; piano, strings, 121; D minor, Op. 49; C minor, Op. 66, 126, 128
Mendelssohn, Paul Hermann, 126

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hensel, Fanny Cäcilie, 122, 124,

Adagio: violin, piano, E major, 124, 299

Capriccio: cello, piano, A-flat major, 124, 299

Fantasia: cello, piano, G minor, 124, 299

Quartet: piano, strings, A-flat, 124, 306

Trio: piano, strings, D minor, Op. 11, 124, 302

Menges String Quartet, 234

Menuhin, Yehudi, 119, 326n7

Meritt, A. Tillman, 215

Merulo, Claudio, 10

Messiaen, Olivier, 271, 279–82, 288, 341n2

Diptyque, organ, 282

Fête des belles eaux, six ondes Martenot, 282, 311

Merle noir, flute, piano, 282, 299

Quintet: piano, strings, Pièce, 282, 309

Quatuor pour la fin du temps, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, 261, 272, 279–82, 306

Metamorphoses nocturnes. See Ligeti, György, Quartets: strings

Metaphors. See Chou Wen-chung

Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 117, 125

Gli amori di Teolinda, 125

Middlebury College, 296

Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania, 221

“Mighty God, while angels bless Thee,” 332n20

Milan, 31, 43, 60, 279

Milder-Hauptmann, Pauline Anna, 94, 96

Mills College, 286

Milman Parry Collection, Columbia University, 200

Minimalism, 265, 278, 287

“Min Jesus, lad mit Hjerte fa,” 228

“Missionary Hymn,” 206

mobile form, 257, 261

Moderne, Jacques, 9

Mollo, Tranquillo, 28, 62

Molnár, Antal, 203

Mondonville, Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de, 28

Monteverdi, Claudio, 20, 198, 332n17

Moonlight Sonata. See Beethoven, Ludwig van

Morley, Thomas, 9, 12

Moscow, 246, 250, 251, 254, 261

Moscow Conservatory, 195, 196, 224, 248, 253, 260, 262, 337n1, 338n11

Moser, Elsbeth, 255

Mozart, Constanze, 27

Page 363 →

Mozart, Leopold, 30, 36, 38, 44, 46, 50, 61, 320n50, 321n12

Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, 26

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 2, 27, 28, 29,, 30–32 35, 36, 38,, 42–51, 54, 55, 56, 57–59, 60–61, 76–77, 80, 83, 90,
93, 102, 107, 113, 116, 117, 130, 182, 209, 225, 228, 257, 335n2

Adagio and Fugue, K. 546, 49; piano 4 hands, 299. See also Quintets: K. 546, string quartet, double bass

Concerto: clarinet, K. 622, 59

Concerto: flute, harp, K. 299, 32

Die Entführung aus dem Serail, 83

Divertimentos: strings, horns, 311; K. 113; F major, K. 247, 56, 57; E-flat, K. 563

Fugue, K. 426, piano 4 hands, 49. See also Quintets: K. 546

Hoffmeister Quartet, K. 499. See Quartets, K. 499

Idomeneo, Re di Creta, 5

Kegelstatt Trio. See Trio: clarinet, viola, piano, E-flat. K. 498

Lucio Silla, 43

March in F, K. 248, 57
Quartets: flute, strings, 57, 306; D major, K. 285; G major, K. 285a; C major, K. 285b; A major, K. 298

Quartet: oboe, violin, viola, cello, F major, K. 368b, 57–58, 306

Quartets: strings, 42, 306; K. 80, 42–43; K. 155; K. 160, 42, 43, 44; K. 168, K. 173, 44–45; Op. 10: 45–48; K.
387, K. 421, K. 428, K. 458, K. 464, K. 465, Dissonance, 64, 227; K. 499, Hoffmeister Quartet, 48–49; K. 575, K.
589, K. 590, Prussian Quartets, 48–50

Quintet: clarinet, strings, A major, K. 581, 58–59, 168, 309

Quintet: horn, strings, double bass, K. 386c, 58, 309

Quintet: piano, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, K. 452, 59, 228, 309

Quintets: strings, 50–51, 309; K. 174; K. 406; K. 515; K. 516, 52; K. 546 (double bass), 299; K. 614

Requiem, K. 626, 49

Serenade: K. 388, 50

Sonata: piano, K. 547b, 32

Sonatas: violin, piano, 299; K. 10, K. 59, K. 60, K. 296, K. 304, K. 305, K. 454, K. 526, K. 547

Trio: clarinet, viola, piano, E-flat, K. 498, Kegelstatt, 76, 168, 302

Trio: strings K. 563, 302

Trios: piano, strings, 76–77, 302; K. 254, K. 496, K. 502, 77; K. 542, K. 548, 77; K. 564, 77

Die Zauberflöte, 108

Mühlfeld [or Mühlfeldt], Richard

Bernhard, 167–68, 169–70

Muhlke, Anne, 235

Muhlke, May, 235

Müller, Iwan, 85

Müller, Karl Friedrich, 108

Müller, Wenzel

Die Schwestern von Prag, 78

Müller, Wilhelm, 95

Müller Quartet, 108, 325n10

Mulliner, Michael, 235

Munich, 31, 58, 169, 229, 241

Musica ricercata. See Ligeti, György

Music for Prague 1968. See Husa, Karel

Musick's Monument, 13

Musikalisches Wochenblatt, 241

Mussorgsky, Modest, 196

Mussolini, Benito, 71

“My country ‘tis of thee,” 193

“My days are gliding swiftly by,” 332n20

“Nachklang,” 161

nackers, 7

Nagel, Robert, 269

Nagy, Imre, 263

Nahat, Dennis

Ontogeny, 269

Nancy, 31, 279

Naples, 31

Napoleon Bonaparte, 86, 94, 102, 210, 215–16, 310

National Endowment for the Arts, 272

“Nearer, My God, to Thee,” 208

NEC. See New England Conservatory “Need,” 332n20

Neruda, Alois, 193

“Nettleton,” 208, 332n20

Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 129, 133, 241, 327n36

New England Conservatory (NEC), 224, 241, 242, 244, 293, 337n24

New England Piano Quartette, 272

New Music Consort, 291

New York Brass Ensemble, 269

New York Brass Quintet, 269

New York City, 2, 204, 208, 241, 269, 276, 291, 293

Alice Tully Hall, 271

Carnegie Hall, 271

Lila Acheson Wallace Auditorium, 291

National Conservatory of Music, 241

New York Philharmonic, 215

Vanderbilt Theatre, 276

Weill Recital Hall, 271

New York Evening Post, 206

New York Times, 148, 232, 271

Nielsen, Carl, 225–28, 335n1, 335n4

Canto serioso, horn, piano, 226, 227–28, 299

Fantasistykker, 226, 299; clarinet, piano, G minor; oboe, piano, Op. 2, Nos. 1, 2

Quartets: strings, 226–27, 306; F minor, Op. 5; G minor, Op. 13; E-flat, Op. 14; F major, Op. 44

Quintet: strings, G major, 226, 309

Quintet: wind, Op. 43, 228, 309

“Serenata in vano,” clarinet, bassoon, horn, cello, double bass, 226, 227–28

Sonatas: violin, piano, 299; G-minor (unpublished), 226; No. 2, Op. 35, 227

Trio: piano, strings, G major (unpublished), 226, 302

Ved en ung kunstners Baare, string quartet, double bass, 226, 227–28, 309

“night music,” 201

“Nimm sie hin denn, diese Lieder,” 150

Nissen, Johanna Henrike Christiane, 156

Nono, Luigi, 292

non-retrogradable rhythm, 281

Norwegian Academy of Music, 194

Nottebohm, Gustav, 164

Notturno, 32, 33, 34, 55, 106, 261, 278

Nuremberg, 27

Oakland, California, 286

Oberlin College Conservatory, 224

oboe da caccia, 22

oboe d'amore, 199

Ockeghem, Johannes, 265, 340n3

Octandre. See Varèse, Edgard

Odhecaton, 8

O dulcis Jesu. See Buxtehude, Dieterich Oganov, Iv, 255

“O happy day that fixed my choice,” 332n20

Oistrakh, David, 251, 338n18

“O Jesu süß, wer dein gedenkt.” See Schütz, Heinrich

“Old, Old Story,” 332–33n20

ondes Martenot, 282, 311

Onslow, George, 86, 117, 225

Ontogeny. See Nahat, Dennis

Ordonez, Carlos, 36

Other Voices. See Druckman, Jacob

Otis, Elisha G., 115

Ottensteiner, Georg, 169

Ottoboni, Pietro Cardinal, 16, 19

Oxenvad, Aage, 228

Oxford University, 187

Padua, 31

Paine, John Knowles, 206, 244

Paisiello, Giovanni, 57

panpipes, 7

Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da, 147

Pamphili, Camillo Astalli, Cardinal, 16, 19

Paris, 9, 28, 30, 31, 35, 57, 69, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 103, 116, 117, 171, 172, 178, 179, 184, 186, 196, 267

Académie Royale de Musique, 171

Centre de Documentation sur la Musique, 267

École Niedermeyer de Musique Classique et Religieuse, 183

École Normale de Musique, 266

Opera, 275

Opéra-Comique, 171

Paris Conservatory, 86, 179, 182, 184, 224

Salle Erard, 171

Théâtre des Italiens, 171

Parker, Horatio, 204, 206, 243

Parma, 31

Parrenin Quartet, 267, 268

Parry, Charles Hubert Hastings, 232

Parsons, Robert, 14

partita, 33, 83

Pascal, Blaise, 278

Pasquier, Etienne, 280

passacaglia, 216, 217, 239, 242, 247, 248, 252, 334n28

passamezzo, 9

Pásztory, Ditta, 277

Paul Sacher Stiftung, 279

pavan, 9, 186, 288

Pavane pour une Infante défunte. See Ravel, Maurice

Peiko, Nikolai, 262

Penderecki, Krzysztof, 261

Quartet: 306; clarinet, violin, viola, cello, 261, 306

Quartets: 306; strings, No. 1 (1960); No. 2 (1968)

Sextet: clarinet, horn, string trio, piano, 261–62, 311

Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, 261

Trio: violin, viola, cello, 261, 302

Perle, George, 221

Persichetti, Vincent, 225, 269

Peterborough, New Hampshire, 244

Petrarca (Petrarch), Francesco, 214, 333n13

Petrograd, 337n1

Petrucci, Ottaviano de, 8, 12

Pfeiffer, Marianne, 109

Philadelphia, 217

Phillips, Harvey, 269

piano trio, 2, 76–82, 92, 133, 171, 190, 247

Piatagorsky, Gregor, 275

Piatti, Alfredo, 167

Piccini, Nicolo, 38

Pichl, Wenzel, 36

Pierrot lunaire. See Schoenberg, Arnold

Piston, Walter, 215, 225

Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 219

Pixis, Friedrich Wilhelm, 107

Pixis, Johann Peter, 171

Pleyel, Ignaz, 27, 37, 54, 171, 225, 319n31

Point Counter Point, 71

Polignac, Princess Edmond de (=Winaretta Singer), 184

Polystylism, 257, 260, 339n31

Poulenc, Francis

Sextet: piano, wind quintet (1939), 271, 311

Prague, 189, 224, 266, 267, 273

Lichtenstein Palace, 340n6

Smetana Hall, 266

Pratsch, Johann Gottfried, 67

Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. See Debussy, Claude

Il prigioniero. See Dallapiccola, Luigi

Primrose, William, 240

Prix de Rome, 186, 187

Probst, Heinrich Albert, 97, 98

Prokofiev, Serge, 275, 299, 306, 309, 338n4

Prussian Quartets. See Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, Quartets, strings, K. 575, K. 589, K. 590

Psalmus Hungaricus. See Kodály, Zoltán

psaltry, 7

Pulcinella. See Stravinsky, Igor

Purcell, Henry, 14, 18, 113, 238, 239

Pulitzer Prize, 269, 285

qin, 290, 294, 295

Quantz, Johann Joachim, 38

Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen, 26

Quartetto serioso. See Beethoven, Ludwig van, Quartets: strings, Op. 95

Quasimodo, Salvatore, 278

quatuor, 32

quatuor brillant, 35, 52, 63, 106, 112, 231, 325n15

quatuor concertante, 35, 111

quatuor d'airs connus, 35, 319n29

Quatuor Haydn, 267

Quatuor pour la fin du temps. See Messiaen, Olivier

Queisser, Karl Traugott, 124

Rachmaninoff, Sergei, 190

racket, 7

Rameau, Jean-Philippe, 16, 24, 30, 180

Pieces de clavecin en concert, 30, 303

Traité de l'harmonie, 16, 24

Ramm, Friedrich, 58
Rapsodie espagnole. See Ravel, Maurice

Rascher, Sigurd M., 268

Ravel, Maurice, 184, 186–88

Introduction and Allegro, flute, clarinet, harp, string quartet, 186, 312

Pavane pour une Infante défunte, 186

Quartet: strings, F major, 186, 306

Rapsodie espagnole, 186

Sonata: violin, cello, 188, 300

Sonata: violin, piano, 188, 300

Trio: piano, strings, A minor, 303

Tzigane, violin, piano, 188, 300

La valse, 258

Ravenscroft, John, 16

Razumovsky, Andrei Kyrillovich, Count, 64, 65

Razumovsky Quartets. See Beethoven, Ludwig van, Quartets: strings, Op. 59, Nos. 1–3

Read, Gardner, 289

Los Dioses Aztecas, Op. 107, six percussionists, 289

Rebner, Adolf, 223

regal, 7

“Regenlied,” 161

Reger, Max, 200

Reich, Steve, 287

Octet: flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, two pianos, two violins, viola, cello, 287, 313

Violin Phase, 287, 306

Reicha, Anton, 86–88, 117, 171, 172, 323n27, 323n8, 331n9

Quintets: flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, 87, 309; Op. 88, Nos. 1–6; Op. 91, Nos. 1–6; Op. 99, Nos. 1–6, Op.
100, Nos. 1–6

Reicha, Gottfried, 23

Reichardt, Johann Friedrich, 103

La reine de Chypre. See Halévy, Fromental

Rellstab, Ludwig, 94

Reményi, Eduard, 161

Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM), 35

“The Returning Hunter,” 244

Rhapsody in Blue. See Gershwin, George

Rheinberger, Joseph, 241, 300, 303, 306, 309, 313, 336n20

Ricercar, 12–13, 137

Richter, Franz Xavier, 38

Richter, Svyatoslav, 251

idký, Jaroslav, 266

Ries, Ferdinand, 78

Rietz, Eduard, 119, 120

Rilke, Rainer Maria von, 268, 278

Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai, 196–97, 341n2

Quintet: flute, clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano, B-flat, 197, 309

Sextet: strings, A major, 197, 311

String Quartet on Russian Themes, 197, 306

Rip van Winkle. See Chadwick, George Whitefield

RISM. See Répertoire International des Sources Musicales

Rítmicas. See Roldan, Amadeo

Road Movies. See Adams, John

Robetin, Dorothea, 221

Roches, Raymond des, 279

Rockwell, John, 271

rococo, 31, 33

Rode, Pierre, 107

Rodzinsky, Artur, 215

Roger-Ducasse, Jean, 184

Roldan, Amadeo, 289 Rítmicas, 313

Romantische Musik. See Denisov, Edison

Romberg, Andreas, 109

Romberg, Bernhard Heinrich, 126

Rome, 16, 19, 31, 85

Rorem, Ned

Quintet: brass, Diversions (1989), 269, 309

Rosamunde, Fürsten von Cypern. See Schubert, Franz Peter

Rosbaud, Hans, 284

Rosé, Arnold, 211, 216

Rosé Quartet, 167, 211, 216

Rossi, Salomone, 17

Rossini, Gioacchino, 113, 117

Rostropovich, Mstislav, 240, 260

Rothschild's Violin. See Fleyshman, Veniamin

Rowe Quartet, 272

Royal Swedish Ballet, 269

Rudolph Johannes Joseph Rainier von Habsburg-Lothringen, Archduke, Cardinal-Archbishop of Olmütz, 80, 81,
323n24

Rue, Pierre de la, 10

Rufer, Josef, 209

Rühling, Philipp, 277

Russian Quartets. See Haydn, Franz Joseph, Quartets: strings, Op. 33

Russian Union of Composers, 251

Sacher, Paul, 277, 279

sackbut, 7

Sádlo, Milos, 251

St. Anthony Partita. See Haydn, Franz Joseph, Divertimentos: Hob. II/46

“St. Denio,” 235

St. James's Hall. See London

St. Matthew Passion. See Bach, Johann Sebastian

St. Petersburg. See Leningrad

Saint-Saëns, Camille

La carnaval des animaux, 2 pianos, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass, flute, clarinet, harmonium, xylophone, 313

Quartet: piano, strings, B-flat major, Op. 41, 306

Quartets: strings, 306; E minor, Op. 112; G minor, Op. 153

Quintet: piano, strings, A minor, Op. 14, 310

Sonata: bassoon, piano, G major, Op. 168, 300

Sonata: clarinet, piano, E-flat major, Op. 167, 300

Sonata: oboe, piano, D major, Op. 166, 300

Sonatas: cello, piano, C minor, Op. 32; F major, Op. 123, 300

Sonatas: violin, piano, 300; D major, Op. 75; E-flat major, Op. 102

Trios: piano, strings, 303; F major, Op. 18; E minor, Op. 92

Sales Baillot, Pierre Marie François de, 107

Salieri, Antonio, 27, 86, 90, 94

Salomon, Johann Peter, 52–53

saltarello, 9, 195

Salzburg, 31, 44, 58, 60, 76

Salzedo, Carlos, 277

San Francisco, 286

Sangîta-ratnakâra, 281

Sarrette, Bernard, 85

Satie, Erik, 186

Sauer & Leidesdorf, 99

Sax, Adolphe, 85

Sax, Charles-Joseph, 85

Säynätsalo, Finland, 232

Scarlatti, Alessandro, 20, 23, 34

Sonate a quattro per due violini, violetta e violoncello senza cembalo, 34, 306

Su le sponde del Tebro, soprano, trumpet, strings, continuo, 23, 312

Scheibe, Johann Adolph, 26

Scheidler, Dorothea (Dorette), 108

Schiesser, Fritz, 277

Schikaneder, Emmanuel, 94

Schillings, Max von, 209

Schlesinger, 69, 88, 110, 322n9

Schmitz, Robert, 276

Schnittke, Alfred, 256–61, 339n28

“The Adventures of a Dentist,” 258

In memoriam, 258

Quartets: strings, 306; No. 1 (1966), 257; No. 2 (1980), 259–60; No. 3 (1983), 260; No. 4 (1989), 261

Quintet: piano, strings (1976), 258, 310

Serenade, clarinet, violin, double bass, percussion, piano, 257, 310

Sonata: cello, piano (1978), 259, 300

Sonatas: violin, piano, 300; No. 2 (1968), 257; No. 3 (1994), 261

Stille Musik, violin, cello, 259, 300

Suite in Olden Style, violin, harpsichord or piano; rev. 1986, viola d'amore, harpsichord, vibraphone, marimba,
Glockenspiel, bells, 258, 300, 303

Trio: violin, viola, cello (1985), 260, 303

Schnittke, Irina, 260, 261

Schobert, Johann, 28, 29–30

Schoenberg (Schönberg), Arnold, 209–16

Five Pieces for Orchestra, Op. 16, 213

Ode to Napoleon, string quartet, reciter, Op. 41 (1945), 210, 215–16

Phantasy: violin, piano, Op. 47 (1949), 210

Pierrot lunaire, flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet, violin/viola, cello, piano, speaking voice, 210

Quartets: strings, 210; D major (1897); No. 1, Op. 7 (1905), 211; Op. 10, No. 2 (1908), 211–12; No. 3, Op. 30
(1927), 214; No. 4, Op. 37 (1936), 214

Quintet: winds, Op. 26 (1924), 210, 212, 213

Serenade: clarinet, bass clarinet, mandolin, guitar, violin, viola, cello, bass voice, Op. 24 (1923), 210, 212
Sextet: strings, Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4

Six Little Pieces, piano, Op. 19

Suite: piano, Op. 25

Suite: 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano, Op. 29, 210, 212, 213–14

Trio: strings, Op. 45, 210, 214–15

Verklärte Nacht. See Sextet: strings,, 210–11

Schubert, Franz Peter, 90–101, 126, 150, 232, 241, 256, 289

Adagio and Rondo Concertante, piano, strings, D. 487, 92, 310

“Am Meer” (Schwanengesang), 150

Auf dem Strom, soprano, horn, piano, Op. 119, D. 943, 94, 303

Erlkönig, 95

Fantasie: piano, 4 hands, F minor, Op. 103, D. 940, 93, 98, 126, 300

“Die Forelle,” 91

Der Graf von Gleichen, 94

Grande marche funebre, piano 4 hands Op. 55, D. 859, 93, 300

Grande marche heroïque, piano 4 hands Op. 66, D. 885, 93, 300

Grandes marches, piano 4 hands Op. 40, D. 819, 93, 300

Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, soprano, clarinet, piano, Op. 129, D. 965, 94–96, 303

Marches characteristiques, piano 4 hands Op. 121, D. 886, 93, 300

Marches heroïques, piano 4 hands, Op. 27, D. 602, 93, 300

Marches militaires, piano 4 hands, Op. 51 D. 733, 93, 300

Octet: strings, double bass, F major, Op. 166, D. 803, 256, 313

Polonaises: piano, 4 hands, 300; Op. 61, D. 824; Op. 75, D. 599, 93

Quartets: strings, 307; D. 18, 90, 98; D. 32, 98; D. 36, 98; D. 46, 98; D. 68, 98; D. 74, 98; D. 94, 98; D. 112, 98;
D. 173, 98; D. 87, 98; A minor, Op. 29, No. 1, D. 804, 99, 100, 101; D minor, Der Tod und das Mädchen (death
and the maiden), D. 810, 99–101; D. Fragment in C minor, D. 703, 98; G major, D. 887, 99

Quintet: piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, Op. 114, Trout, 91–92, 310

Rondo: piano, 4 hands, A major, Op. 107, D 951, 93, 300

Rosamunde, Fürsten von Cypern, D. 797, 100

Die schöne Müllerin, Op. 25, 99

Schwanengesang, D. 744, 150

“Sei mir gegrüßt,” 91

Sonatas: piano, 4 hands, 93, 300; B-flat major, Op. 30, D. 617; C major, Op. 140, D. 812

Symphony: No. 8, Unfinished Symphony, 99

“Der Tod und das Mädchen” (death and the maiden), D. 531, 91, 99

Trios: piano, strings, 92–93, 303; B-flat, Op. 99, D. 898; E major, Op. 100, D. 929

Variationen über ein Franzosisches Lied, Op. 10, D. 624, 93, 300

Winterreise, 91

Schuller, Gunther, 269

Schuman, William, 269

Schumann, Clara, 130, 139, 146, 147, 153, 154, 156, 158, 165, 167

Schumann, Robert, 2, 97, 103, 105, 124, 128–46

Abegg Variations, Op. 1, 132

Adagio and Allegro in A-flat, horn, piano, Op. 70, 139, 300

Carnaval, Op. 9, 129

Concerto: piano, A minor, 242

Fantasiestücke: clarinet, piano, Op. 73, 139, 300

Fantasiestücke: piano, violin, cello, Op. 88, 139, 303

Fantasy: piano, Op. 17, 150

Five Pieces in Folk Style, cello, piano, Op. 102, 139, 300

Frauenliebe und Leben, 137

Genoveva, 151

Märchenbilder, piano, viola, Op. 113, 300

Märchenerzählungen, piano, viola, clarinet, Op. 132, 139, 303

“Neue Bahnen” (essay), 146, 170

Papillons, piano, Op. 2, 129

Quartets: piano, strings, 307; C minor (1829), 130; E-flat, Op. 47, 139, 140

Quartets: strings, Op. 41, 130, 307; No. 1, A minor, 130–33; No. 2, F major, 133–36; No. 3, A major, 136–38

Quintet: piano, strings, E-flat, Op. 44,, 139–46, 310

Six Fugues on the Name of BACH, Op. 60

Sonatas: violin, piano, 139, 300; A minor, Op. 105; D minor, Op. 121; A minor, Op. posth.

Three Romances, piano, oboe, Op. 94, 300

Trios: piano, strings, 138, 303; D minor, Op. 63; F major, Op. 80; G minor, Op. 110

Schuppanzigh, Ignaz, 65, 70, 97, 101, 322n10

Schütz, Heinrich

“Anima mea liquefacta est,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 263–64, two tenors, two cornettos, basso continuo,
21, 310

“Attendite, popule meus,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 270, bass, four trombones, basso continuo, 21, 311

“Domine, labia mea aperies,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 271, soprano, tenor, cornetto, trombone, bassoon,
basso continuo, 21, 311

“Fili mi, Absalon,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 269, bass, four trombones, basso continuo, 20, 311

“In lectulo per noctes,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 272–73, soprano, alto, three bassoons, basso continuo,
21, 311

“In te, Domine, speravi,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 259, alto, violin, bassoon, basso continuo, 21, 307

“Jubilate Deo omnis terra,” Symphoniae sacrae, vol. 1, SWV 262, bass, two recorders, basso continuo, 21, 307

“O Jesu süß, wer dein gedenkt,” Symphoniae sacrae vol. 3, SWV 406, 2 sopranos, 2 tenors, 2 violins, basso
continuo, 20, 312

Seven Words, S, A, T, B soli, basso continuo, 254, 310. See also Gubaidulina, Sofia, Seven Words; Haydn, Franz
Joseph, Quartets, Op. 51

Symphoniae sacrae: 20; vol. 1, 1629; vol. 2, 1647; vol. 3, 1650

Die Schwestern von Prag. See Müller, Wenzel

scordatura, 18, 108, 202

Second Construction. See Cage, John

Seidler, Carl August, 107

“Sei mir gegrüßt,” 91

“Seit ich ihn geseh'n,” 137

Sellner, Joseph, 85

Senefelder, Aloys, 27

Serbo-Croatian Folk Songs. See Bartók, Béla

serenade, 32, 33, 34, 55, 56, 83, 87, 321n1, 321n3

serialism (twelve-note music), 209, 213, 217, 252, 263, 292

serpent, 6, 60, 85

Serrarius, Therese Pierron, 31

Sessions, Roger, 285

“Seufzer, Tränen, Kummer, Not,” 158

Seven Words. See Gubaidulina, Sophia; Haydn, Franz Joseph, Quartets, Op. 51; Schütz, Heinrich

Sevitzky, Fabien, 217

Shaker Loops. See Adams, John

“Shall we gather at the river?”, 332–33n20

shawm, 5, 7

Shebalin, Vissarion, 248

Quartets: strings, Nos. 1–9, 248, 253, 307

Sonata: cello, piano, Op. 54, 300

Sonata: viola, piano, Op. 51, No. 2, 300

Sonata: violin, piano, Op. 51, No. 1, 300

Trio: piano, strings, A, Op. 39, 303

Shepitko, Larissa, 259

Shinebourne, Jack, 236

“Shining Shore,” 332n20

Shirinsky, Vasily, 248, 338n14

Shirinsky, Sergei, 248

Shostakovich, Dmitri Boleslavovich, 246

Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitriyevich, 190,, 245–52

Concerto: cello, No. 1, 250

Concertos: violin, 251; No. 1; No. 2

The Gamblers, 252

Lady Macbeth of the Mzensk District, 250

Quartets: strings, 245; No. 1, C major, Op. 49, 245; No. 2, A major, Op. 68, 248; No. 3, F major, Op. 73, 248; No.
4, D major, Op. 83, 251; No. 5, B-flat major, Op. 92, 248, 251; No. 8, C minor, Op. 110, 248, 250–51; No. 11, F
minor, Op. 122, 248; No. 12, D-flat major, Op. 133, 248, 251, 252; No. 13, B-flat minor, Op. 138, 248; No. 14, F-
sharp major, Op. 142, 248; No. 15, E-flat minor, Op. 144, 248

Quintet: piano, strings, G minor, Op. 57, 246

Sonata: cello, piano, D minor, Op. 40, 245, 246

Sonata: viola, piano, Op. 147, 245, 252

Sonata: violin, piano, Op. 134, 245,, 251–52

Symphony: No. 1, 251

Trios: piano, strings, 245; C minor, Op. 8, 246; E minor, Op. 67, 246–48, 250, 251

Sibelius, Jean, 225, 229–32

“Finlandia,” 232

Quartets: strings, 307; A minor (1889); B-flat, Op. 4; D minor, Voces intim , Op. 56, 230–32;

Andante festivo, 232

Quintet: piano, strings, G minor (1890), 310

Sonatina: violin, piano, E major, Op. 80, 230, 301

Siboni, Josef, 97

Sieber, Jean-Georges, 83

Der siebente Ring. See George, Stefan

Siena, 219

Simpson, Christopher, 13

Simrock, 110, 120, 153, 159, 161, 163, 192, 328n46

Simrock, Fritz, 191, 217

Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied. See Buxtehude, Dieterich

Skandinavisk Musikforlag, 228

slide trumpet, 7

Smallman, Basil, 128, 133

Smetana, Bedrich, 189

Quartets: strings, 189, 307; No. 1 in E minor, “From My Life,” 190; No. 2 in D major, 190

Trio: piano, strings, G minor, Op. 15, 189, 190, 303

Smetana Quartet, 267

Smith, Samuel Francis, 193

Snape Maltings Concert Hall, 239

Société National de Musique, 174–75, 178

Society for Private Musical Performances, 221

Sollertinsky, Ivan Ivanovich, 247

Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber. See Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel

Sonnleitner, Leopold von, 97

Sopkin, George, 268

sordune, 7

Sørensen, Hans,228

Southern Harmony, 242

Souvenir de Florence. See Tschaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich, Sextet

“Sowing in the morning,” 332n20

Spaun, Josef von, 97

Spillville (Iowa), 192

Spinacino, Francesco, 12

Spitta, Philipp, 116, 147

Spohr, Louis, 87, 106–13, 117, 121, 128

Autobiography, 106, 108

Concertante: two violins, Op. 88, 301

Double-quartets: strings, 106, 112–13, 313; D minor, Op. 65; E-flat major, Op. 77; E minor, Op. 87; G minor, Op.
136

Duos: violins, 106, 107–8, 301; Op. 3; Op. 9; Op. 39; Op. 48; Op. 67; Op. 148; Op. 150; Op. 153

Duos: violin, piano, 106

Nonet: violin, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, F major, Op. 31, 106, 109, 313

Octet: violin, two violas, cello, double bass, clarinet, two horns, E major, Op. 32, 106, 109, 313

Quartets: strings, 106, 110–12, 307; C major, Op. 29, Nos. 1–3, 109; F minor, Op. 45; Op. 58, Nos. 1–3; A major,
Op. 93; E-flat, Op. 152

Quintet: piano, flute, clarinet, horn, bassoon, C minor, Op. 52, 106, 109, 310

Quintets: piano, strings, 106

Quintets: strings, 106

Septet: flute, clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, cello, piano, A minor, Op. 147, 106, 110, 312

Sonatas: violin, harp, 108; C minor, WoO 23; B-flat major, Op. 16; E-flat major, Op. 113; G major, Op. 115; D
major, Op. 114
Trios: piano, strings, 106

Sprague Coolidge, Elizabeth, 214, 219, 237

Stadler, Johann, 59

Stadler, Paul Anton, 58, 59

Stainer, John

Theory of Harmony, 232

Stalin, Josef, 248, 251

Stalin Prize, 248

“Stand up! Stand up for Jesus!,” 206

Stanford, Charles Villiers, 232

Steinway, 153

Steuermann, Eduard, 215, 219

Stewart, Jean, 234

Stockhausen, Karlheinz, 264, 292

Stockholm Philharmonic, 265

Stósslová, Kamila, 199

Stradella, Alessandro, 19–20

“Lasciate ch'io respiri, ombre gradite” G. 1.4–12, soprano, bass, two violins, basso continuo, 19, 310

Stradivarius, 15, 169

Strasbourg, 31

Streicher, Johann Baptiste, 153

Strauss, Richard, 2, 206–8, 210, 211, 230, 286

Also sprach Zarathustra, 211

Death and Transfiguration, 221

Ein Heldenleben, 211

Till Eulenspiegel, 221

Stravinsky, Igor, 274

Duo concertante, violin, piano, 275, 301

Octet: flute, clarinet, bassoons 1, 2, trumpets 1, 2 (C and A), trombones 1, 2 (tenor bass), 274–75, 313
Pulcinella, 275

Septet: clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano, violin, viola, cello, 275, 312

Suite Italienne, cello, piano; violin, piano, 275, 301

Streams. See Chou Wen-chung, Quartets: strings, No. 2

Strinasacchi, Regina, 31

String Quartet on Russian Themes. See Rimsky-Korsakoff

style gallant, 31, 32, 33, 38, 43, 60, 74, 317n6, 319n25

suite, 9, 17

Suite in Olden Style. See Schnittke, Alfred

Suite Italienne. See Stravinsky, Igor

Sullivan, Arthur, 128

Sun Quartets. See Haydn, Franz Joseph, Quartets: strings, Op. 20

Sur incises. See Boulez, Pierre

Susato, Tylman, 9

Süßmeyer, Franz Xavier Specchio d'Arcadia, 94

Swarthmore College, 279

Swieten, Gottfried van, 49

Symphonie fantastique. See Berlioz, Hector

Synchronisms. See Davidovsky, Mario

Szigeti, Joseph, 202

Taneyev Quartet, 248

Tanglewood, 283, 291

Tanzer, Francisco, 255, 339n28

Tartini, Giuseppe

“Devil's Trill Sonata,” 289, 301

“Tell me the old, old story,” 332–33n20

Temesváry, János, 203

Temporal Variations. See Britten, Benjamin

Texier, Rosalie, 180

Theory of Harmony. See Stainer, John

“There'll be no dark valley,” 332n20

“There'll be no more sorrow when Jesus comes,” 332n20

Third Construction. See Cage, John

Thomas, Theodore, 148

Three Pictures after Paul Klee. See Denisov, Edison

Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. See Penderecki, Krzysztof

Tiananmen Square, 294

Tiento. See ricercar

Till Eulenspiegel. See Strauss, Richard

Tishchenko, Boris, 246, 253

“Der Tod und das Mädchen.” See “Death and the Maiden”

Toeschi, Karl Joseph, 36

Tolstoy, Leo, 195, 197, 198

Tomasini, Luigi, 37

Torricella, Christoph, 28

Tost Quartets. See Haydn, Franz Joseph, Quartets: strings, Opp. 54, 55, 64

Tourte, François, 107

Tovey, Donald Francis, 37

Traité de l'harmonie. See Rameau, Jean-Philippe

Trevithick, Richard, 115

Trio pathétique. See Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich

Tristan und Isolde. See Wagner, Richard

Trout Quintet. See Schubert, Franz Peter, Quintet: piano, strings, Op. 114

Tschaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich, 178, 190, 195

Quartets: strings, 195–96, 307; D major, Op. 11; F major, Op. 22; E-flat minor, Op. 30

Sextet: strings, Souvenir de Florence, 196, 311

Trio: piano, strings, A minor, Op. 50, 196, 303

Tsyganov, Dmitri, 248

Turin, 31

Türk, Daniel Gottlob

Clavierschule, 26

Twilight Colors. See Chou Wen-chung

Tyson, Alan, 37

Tzigane. See Ravel, Maurice

Ulrich, Karl Wilhelm, 124

Umberto Micheli Piano Competition, 279

Unfinished Symphony. See Schubert, Franz Peter, Symphony No. 8

Universal Edition, 218, 259, 334n24

University of Louisville, 279

Ustvolskaya, Galina

Trio: clarinet, violin, piano (1949), 251, 303

Vainberg, Moisey, 251

La valse. See Ravel, Maurice

Values of Time. See Lansky, Paul

Der Vampyr. See Marschner, Heinrich

Va hal, Jan, 36

Variable modes, 292, 293, 294

Variationen über ein Franzosisches Lied. See Schubert, Franz Peter

Varèse, Edgard

Ionisation, 289, 290

Octandre, flute (piccolo), clarinet (E-flat clarinet), oboe, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, double bass,, 275–77

Vaughan Williams, Ralph, 225, 232–35

“The Composer in Wartime,” 235

Household Music, 233, 235, 307

Phantasy Quintet, strings, 233–34, 310

Quartets: strings, 307; G minor, No. 1, 233; A minor, No. 2, 233,, 234–35

Six Studies in English Folksong, cello (or violin, viola, clarinet), piano, 233, 235, 301
Sonata: violin, piano, A minor, 233, 235, 301

Venice, 31, 239

Veracini, Francesco Maria, 18

Verbunkos, 188, 202

Verdehr Trio, 3, 262, 272

Verdi, Giuseppe, 115

Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen. See Society for Private Musical Performances

Veress, Sándor, 263

Verklärte Nacht. See Schoenberg, Arnold, sextet: strings

Verona, 31

Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen. See Quantz, Johann Joachim

Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule. See Mozart, Leopold

Versuch über die wahre Art das Klavier zu spielen. See Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel

Veselí, Adolf,199

Vicenza, 31

Vienna, 2, 27, 28, 30, 31, 36, 39, 42, 44, 46, 53, 54, 58, 59, 60, 64, 70, 79, 85, 86, 90, 97, 101, 102, 109, 153, 158,
323n7

Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, 147, 163, 167, 169, 193, 206, 214, 216, 217, 218, 219, 224, 229, 256

Singakademie, 147

Vieuxtemps, Henri, 105

vihuela, 7

viol, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13

viola da gamba, 19

viola d'amore, 199, 233, 258, 299, 300, 303

Violin Phase. See Reich, Steve

Viotti, Giovanni Battista, 107, 117

Virginal, 7

Voces intimœ. See Sibelius, Jean, Quartets: strings, Op. 56

Vogel, Maria, 258

Vogler, Georg Josef (Abbé), 38, 88

Vogt, August-Gustave, 86

Voigt, Carl and Henriette, 128, 139

Waldbauer, Imre, 203

Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet, 201, 203

Walden Quartet, 267

Waldhorn, 156

Wagner, Richard, 2, 35, 64, 115, 146, 182, 206, 209, 273, 319n29

Tristan und Isolde, 221, 222

Washington, D. C., 244

Coolidge Auditorium, Library of Congress, 271

“Watchman, tell us of the night,” 332n20

“Webb,” 206

Weber, Carl Maria von, 88, 103, 125

Der Freischütz, 64, 80, 122

Webern, Anton, 209, 216–20, 256, 288, 292

Bagatelles for string quartet, Op. 9, 217–18, 307

Five canons: soprano, clarinet, bass clarinet, Op. 16, 303

Five movements for string quartet, Op. 5, 216, 217, 307

Five songs with five instruments, Op. 15, 216, 311

Four Pieces, violin, piano, Op. 7, 217, 301

Passacaglia, Op. 1, 216, 217

Quartets: strings, 307; Five Movements, Op. 5; Op. 28, 216–17, 219–20

Quartet: violin, clarinet, tenor saxophone, piano, Op. 22, 219, 307

Six songs with four instruments, Op. 14, 216, 310

Three folksongs with three instruments, Op. 17, 216, 307

Three little pieces, cello, piano, Op. 11, 218

Three songs, E-flat clarinet, guitar, Op. 18, 216, 303

Trio: strings, Op. 20, 218, 303

Weelkes, Thomas, 14
Wegelius, Martin, 229

Well-tempered Clavier. See Bach, Johann Sebastian

Werckmeister, 103

Werner, Eric, 121

Western Brass Quintet, 270

West German Radio, 264

White Ives, Moss, 205

Widor, Charles-Marie, 330n8

Wieck Schumann, Clara. See Schumann, Clara

Wielhorski, Matwej Jurjewitsch, 126

Willaert, Adriano, 13

Windswept Peaks. See Chou Wen-chung

Wood, Charles, 232

Wood, Ursula, 234

“Work, for night is coming,” 332n20

“Work Song,” 332n20

World War I, 180, 197, 218, 223, 237, 243

World War II, 244, 250, 283, 337n1

Xylorimba, 284, 312

Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. See Britten, Benjamin

Youth. See Janácek, Leos, Sextet: winds

Ysaye, Eugène, 176

Ysaye Quartet, 179

Zarlino, Gioseffe, 12

Zelter, Karl Friedrich, 118, 121

Zemlinsky, Alexander

Lyric Symphony, 221

Trio: clarinet, cello, piano, D minor, Op. 3, 303, 330n86

Zemlinsky, Mathilde, 212

Zorian Quartet, 238

Zurich, 31