Get Chamber Music A Listener s Guide 1st Edition James Keller free all chapters

Download the full version of the ebook at ebookfinal.
com
Chamber Music A Listener s Guide 1st Edition James

Keller
https://ebookfinal.com/download/chamber-music-a-listener-s-
guide-1st-edition-james-keller/
OR CLICK BUTTON
DOWNLOAD EBOOK
Download more ebook instantly today at https://ebookfinal.com

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...
Chamber Music A Research and Information Guide Routledge

Music Bibliographies Third Edition John H. Baron
https://ebookfinal.com/download/chamber-music-a-research-and-
information-guide-routledge-music-bibliographies-third-edition-john-h-
baron/
ebookfinal.com
The NPR curious listener s guide to opera 1st Perigee ed

Edition Berger
https://ebookfinal.com/download/the-npr-curious-listener-s-guide-to-
opera-1st-perigee-ed-edition-berger/
ebookfinal.com
Metric manipulations in Haydn and Mozart chamber music for

strings 1787 1791 1st Edition Haydn
https://ebookfinal.com/download/metric-manipulations-in-haydn-and-
mozart-chamber-music-for-strings-1787-1791-1st-edition-haydn/
ebookfinal.com
America s Three Regimes A New Political History 1st

Edition Morton Keller
https://ebookfinal.com/download/america-s-three-regimes-a-new-
political-history-1st-edition-morton-keller/
ebookfinal.com
Maya Visual Effects The Innovator s Guide Autodesk
Official Press 2nd Edition Eric Keller
https://ebookfinal.com/download/maya-visual-effects-the-innovator-s-
guide-autodesk-official-press-2nd-edition-eric-keller/
ebookfinal.com
A Performer s Guide to Seventeenth Century Music Second

Edition Stewart Carter
https://ebookfinal.com/download/a-performer-s-guide-to-seventeenth-
century-music-second-edition-stewart-carter/
ebookfinal.com
A Student s Guide to Fourier Transforms 2nd Edition J. F.

James
https://ebookfinal.com/download/a-student-s-guide-to-fourier-
transforms-2nd-edition-j-f-james/
ebookfinal.com
Performer s Guide to Music of the Romantic Period 1st

Edition Anthony Burton
https://ebookfinal.com/download/performer-s-guide-to-music-of-the-
romantic-period-1st-edition-anthony-burton/
ebookfinal.com
Strindberg and the Five Senses Studies in Strindberg s

Chamber Plays 1st Edition Hans-Goran Ekman
https://ebookfinal.com/download/strindberg-and-the-five-senses-
studies-in-strindberg-s-chamber-plays-1st-edition-hans-goran-ekman/
ebookfinal.com
Chamber Music
This page intentionally left blank
CHAMBER
MUSIC
A Listener’s Guide
JAMES M. KELLER
1
2011
3
Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further
Oxford University’s objective of excellence
in research, scholarship, and education.
Oxford New York

Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Copyright © 2011 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
www.oup.com
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Keller, James M., 1953–
Chamber music : a listener’s guide / James M. Keller.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-19-538253-2
1. Chamber music—History and criticism.
2. Chamber music—Analysis, appreciation. I. Title.
ML1100.K45 2010
785—dc22
2010009665
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America

on acid-free paper
To Marc Dorfman,
for twenty-seven years of reasons
Introduction
“If I were in Berlin, I should rarely miss the Möser Quartet performances,”
wrote the poet and polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in 1829, to his
musical adviser Carl Friedrich Zelter. This ensemble, headed by the violin-
ist Karl Möser, stood at the core of Berlin’s concert culture, and audiences
crowded in to hear them play not only familiar quartets—by Haydn, for
example—but also scores on which the ink was scarcely dry. Reviewing an
1828 concert in which they tackled Beethoven’s String Quartet in A minor
(Op. 132), published only a year earlier, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung
of Leipzig worried that this “very difficult new quartet . . . , notwithstanding
beautiful individual thoughts, did not please in its total effect, owing prin-
cipally to the exhausting length of the movements and the overly rhapsodic
development.” And yet Goethe, who was no avant-gardist when it came to
musical taste, found the foursome’s repertoire uniquely satisfying. He con-
tinued in his letter: “Of all types of instrumental music, I have always been
able to follow these best. You listen to four sensible persons conversing, you
profit from their discourse, and you get to know the individual character of
the instruments.”
Goethe’s pronouncement became the most famous summation of
chamber music because it confirms what all listeners sense. A symphony
orchestra may thrill us with the vastness of its resources, but a chamber
group engages us on an entirely personal level. The musicians are wrapped
in a web of intense communication with one another, and their parts, never
so numerous as to confuse, project with a clarity that draws listeners in as
rapt eavesdroppers on the conversation. Most often the subject is the music
itself: the interweaving of melodies, the piquancy of harmonies, the archi-
tecture of construction, the timbre of sonic combinations. But chamber
works can also give voice to less abstract matters; some composers have
found such intimate forces ideal for conveying messages of love, for encod-
ing tributes of musical respect, for proposing political commentary, for mus-
ing on their own lives.
The essays in this book are meant to help listeners deepen their apprecia-
tion of the chamber music literature. Many of them began as program notes,
and as such they were crafted to assist listeners who were about to hear—or
had just heard—the works performed. That is how I hope you will read them.
viii Introduction
Whatever they aspire to convey is bound to be slight indeed if their reading

is not accompanied by focused, committed listening.
There was a time when program notes tended toward extended musi-
cal analysis. To this approach we owe the revered program essays of Donald
Francis Tovey from the first half of the twentieth century, as well as those of
my beloved, departed colleague Michael Steinberg from the ensuing half-
century; his insights will not be less enduring. My approach is usually more
historical than analytical, and when it does drift toward analytical waters it
takes care not to stray into deep currents. Music-lovers of 2010 are different
from those of a century ago or even of a half-century ago. I cannot assume
that they are able to read musical notation, and so I banish it from my pro-
gram notes out of fear that it may alienate many readers rather than beckon
them in. Some readers may find certain entries on the technical side, while
others may wish they were more technical. My goal is to strike a happy mean
that most people will find profitable most of the time. I have done my best
to avoid jargon that nonprofessionals can find impenetrable; and, yet, one
cannot write meaningfully about the content of musical compositions with-
out using some vocabulary that is specific to the field. Readers who require
help with the definition of musical terms, or who want to remind themselves
precisely what “sonata form” or stringendo or basset horn are, might keep an
ancillary reference book within reach; I would particularly recommend The
Harvard Dictionary of Music (Fourth Edition).
Among the hallmarks of chamber music are the variety of its ensem-
bles and the wealth of its repertoire. A guide of this size obviously cannot
approach the repertoire in an exhaustive way, but the pieces discussed here all
hold places of honor in the world of chamber music, and there is not a single
one that a music-lover should go without hearing. In these pages readers will
find most of the pieces they are likely to encounter most often in the course
of their concert-going. Needless to say, the number of high-quality pieces that
simply cannot be included within the available space is staggering; but I felt
it would be better to say enough about the works that are included than to
short-change them in order to touch lightly on more pieces. I have limited
coverage to compositions that use between two and eight instrumentalists,
normally playing without a conductor. (Two nonets and a decet were regret-
fully eliminated in the final cut.) I have not included any duos in which one
of the participants is a piano, such as violin-and-piano sonatas. These may
be legitimately considered chamber music, but much of that repertoire does
invite a “soloist-plus-accompanist” aspect that is quite different from the gen-
eral democracy of, say, a woodwind quintet; and so I drew the line.
Readers will find in these pages a strong representation of such seminal
groupings as the string quartet and the piano trio, but I also have included
pieces that suggest the variety of instrumental combinations that help make
Introduction ix
chamber music so endlessly interesting. Great names of the past dominate

among the composers, but a number of living composers also find a place
here, in every case thanks to chamber pieces that have begun to stake claims
as classics. These reflect my perspective as an American listener; if I were
British, I would probably have felt it essential to include works by Peter Max-
well Davies and Thomas Adès; if German, by Hans Werner Henze and Wolf-
gang Rihm; if French, by Henri Dutilleux. When a composer is represented
by multiple works, I have presented the pieces in chronological order within
the relevant chapter so as to suggest the historical flow of the composer’s
“chamber music career.”
Some of these essays appear for the first time in this book, but many
trace their ancestry to writings that appeared initially in the publications
of musical establishments with which I have been affiliated over the years.
I thank them for their support of this project, as organizations and as the indi-
vidual professionals who have served as my special colleagues. At the New
York Philharmonic and its chamber incentive, the New York Philharmonic
Ensembles, Eric Latzky and Monica Parks (my cherished partner in program
notes for the past fifteen years) have always offered unflagging encourage-
ment, and I deeply appreciate president and executive director Zarin Mehta’s
constant support of communications that help engage audiences. The San
Francisco Symphony maintains two separate chamber music series in addi-
tion to its orchestral programs, which affords me the pleasure of near-constant
interaction with the editorial team of Larry Rothe, Katherine Cummins, and
Jeanette Yu—friends, all; and I am grateful for the fervor the orchestra’s exec-
utive director, Brent Assink, displays when it comes to upholding the sto-
ried standards of the orchestra’s publications. I greatly value the camaraderie
I enjoy with Janet Kessin and Heike Currie at the Juilliard School, and
I always smile when my in-box holds an e-mail from Alison Latham, the
genial and astute program editor of the Edinburgh International Festival.
I have now written for six editors at Chamber Music magazine, a publica-
tion of Chamber Music America, most prominently (working backward) my
esteemed collaborators Ellen Goldensohn, Karissa Krenz, Johanna Keller, and
Clair Van Ausdall; I thank them all, as well as the organization’s executive
director, Margaret Lioi. There is nobody among these colleagues whose input
is not in some way reflected in this volume. Thanks are also due to my com-
padres at Pasatiempo/The Santa Fe New Mexican, and especially to my editor
there, Kristina Melcher, who gave me the gift of time.
The seed of this book was planted through conversations with Kim Rob-
inson, then the music editor at Oxford University Press, and it was nurtured by
her successor, Suzanne Ryan, who as executive editor of music books has kept
everything on an even keel. Joellyn Ausanka and Madelyn Sutton are among
those of her associates who have labored with consummate professionalism
x Introduction
on behalf of this book. Joanne Wang proved to be both unflappable as my

literary agent and unswerving as my friend.
Speaking of friends, these are a few who provided kindnesses specifically
connected to the realization of this book: Alberto Bertoli and Eva Magdolen
Bertoli, Linda Ciolek and the late Marty Streicher, Mary Lou Falcone, Annice
Jacoby, Brian Kellow, Eloy and Anita Muñoz, Stuart and Linda Nelson, Roger
and Kyla Thompson, Susan Wilber. I am grateful to my long-departed par-
ents, Fred and Roberta Keller, who shuttled me to countless music lessons
and in every way supported my incipient fascination with great music. Of my
teachers, I am especially indebted to five who helped set me on the course of
my life’s work: the late Nancy Fisher, who cemented my love of languages; the
late Virginia Zug, who challenged me to be a better writer; Frank J. Ferraro,
who made space for chamber music in a high school’s curriculum because it
mattered to one of his students, and therefore to him; Maurice Bourgue, who
guided me as an oboist and revealed musical secrets I will not forget; and
Allen Forte, music theorist extraordinaire, who clarified that musical scores
both provide answers and invite questions.
Last and most I thank Marc Dorfman, my indispensable other half for the
past twenty-seven years. He has been and will remain my concert companion
of choice.
Contents
ANTON ARENSKY 1
Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 32 1
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH 5

Trio Sonata in G major for Flute, Violin, and Basso
Continuo, BWV 1038 5
Sonata sopr’il Soggetto Reale from Musical Offering,
BWV 1079 7
SAMUEL BARBER 11
String Quartet, Op. 11 11
Summer Music for Wind Quintet, Op. 31 14
BÉLA BARTÓK 17
String Quartet No. 2 17
Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion 26
Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano 29
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 35

Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 1, No. 3 35
Trio in B-flat major for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano,
Op. 11 37
String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 18, No. 6 40
Septet in E-flat major for Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Violin,
Viola, Cello, and Double Bass, Op. 20 42
Serenade in D major for Flute, Violin, and Viola,
Op. 25 44
String Quintet in C major, Op. 29 46
String Quartet in F major, Op. 59, No. 1,
First Razumovsky 48
xii Contents
String Quartet in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2,

Second Razumovsky 51
String Quartet in C major, Op. 59, No. 3,
Third Razumovsky 53
Piano Trio in D major, Op. 70, No. 1, Ghost 54
Piano Trio in E-flat major, Op. 70, No. 2 56
String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 74, Harp 59
String Quartet in F minor, Op. 95, Quartett Serioso 60
Piano Trio in B-flat major, Op. 97, Archduke 62
String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 127 65
String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132 67
String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 130, and Grosse Fuge,
Op. 133 69
String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131 74
String Quartet in F major, Op. 135 76
ALBAN BERG 80
Lyric Suite for String Quartet 80
ALEXANDER BORODIN 84
String Quartet No. 2 in D major 84
JOHANNES BRAHMS 88
Piano Trio No. 1 in B major, Op. 8 88
String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 18 92
Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25 94
Piano Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 26 97
Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 99
String Sextet No. 2 in G major, Op. 36 101
Trio in E-flat major for Horn, Violin, and Piano,
Op. 40 104
String Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 51, No. 1 106
String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2 108
Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60 110
String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat major, Op. 67 113
Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, Op. 87 116
String Quintet No. 1 in F major, Op. 88 118
Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, Op. 101 120
String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 111 123
Trio in A minor for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano,
Op. 114 125
Clarinet Quintet in B, Op. 115 127
Contents xiii
BENJAMIN BRITTEN 130

Phantasy for Oboe and String Trio, Op. 2 130
String Quartet No. 2 in C major, Op. 36 133
ELLIOTT CARTER 136

Eight Etudes and a Fantasy for Wind Quartet 136
AARON COPLAND 141

Two Pieces for String Quartet 141
Vitebsk (Study on a Jewish Theme) 144
RUTH CRAWFORD (SEEGER) 146

String Quartet 1931 146
GEORGE CRUMB 150

Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) for
Three Masked Players 150
Black Angels: Thirteen Images from the
Dark Land (Images I) 153
An Idyll for the Misbegotten (to be heard from afar,
over a lake, on a moonlit evening in August) 156
CLAUDE DEBUSSY 159

String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10 159
Sonata (No. 2) for Flute, Viola, and Harp 161
ERNST VON DOHNÁNYI 165

Serenade for String Trio, Op. 10 165
ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK 168

String Quartet in C major, Op. 61 168
Piano Trio in F minor, Op. 65 171
Terzetto in C major for Two Violins and Viola, Op. 74 172
Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 81 173
Piano Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 87 175
Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 90, Dumky 177
String Quartet in F major, Op. 96, American 179
String Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 97, American 181
EDWARD ELGAR 184

Piano Quintet in A minor, Op. 84 184
xiv Contents
GEORGE ENESCU 188

Octet for Strings, Op. 7 188
GABRIEL FAURÉ 191

Piano Quartet No. 2 in G minor, Op. 45 191
Piano Quintet No. 2 in C minor, Op. 115 193
Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 120 196
CÉSAR FRANCK 198

Piano Quintet in F minor 198
MIKHAIL GLINKA 202

Trio pathétique in D minor for Clarinet, Bassoon,
and Piano 202
OSVALDO GOLIJOV 205

The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind 205
EDVARD GRIEG 209

String Quartet in G minor, Op. 27 209
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN 213

String Quartet in F minor, Op. 20, No. 5
(Hob. III:35) 213
String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 33, No. 2,
Joke (Hob. III:38) 216
Bird (Hob. III:39) 219
String Quartet in D major, Op. 50, No. 6,
Frog (Hob. III:49) 221
String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 64, No. 3
(Hob. III:67) 224
String Quartet in D major, Op. 64, No. 5,
Lark (Hob. III:63) 226
String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 71, No. 1
(Hob. III:69) 227
String Quartet in G, Op. 74, No. 3,
Reiter (Hob. III:74) 231
Piano Trio in A major (Hob. XV:18) 232
Piano Trio in G major, Gypsy Rondo
(Hob. XV:25) 234
Piano Trio in C major (Hob XV:27) 236
Contents xv
String Quartet in G major, Op. 76, No. 1

(Hob. III:75) 238
Emperor (Hob. III:77) 240
String Quartet in D major, Op. 76, No. 5 (Hob. III:79) 243
String Quartet in G major, Op. 77, No. 1 (Hob. III:81) 245
FANNY MENDELSSOHN HENSEL 247

Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 11 247
PAUL HINDEMITH 251

Kleine Kammermusik for Wind Quintet,
Op. 24, No. 2 251
Septet for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet,
Bassoon, Horn, and Trumpet 253
JACQUES IBERT 256

Trois Pièces brèves (“Three Short Pieces”) for
Wind Quintet 256
CHARLES IVES 259

LEOŠ JANÁČEK 263

Mládi (“Youth”), Sextet for Winds 263
Capriccio for Piano Left-Hand and Chamber
Ensemble 266
String Quartet No. 2, Listy Důvěrné
(“Intimate Letters”) 268
ZOLTÁN KODÁLY 272

Duo for Violin and Cello, Op. 7 272
Serenade for Two Violins and Viola, Op. 12 274
GYÖRGY LIGETI 276

Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet 276
Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet 278
Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano 281
BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ 283

La Revue de cuisine Suite, H. 161 283
String Quartet No. 5, H. 268 286
xvi Contents
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 290

Octet in E-flat major for Strings, Op. 20 290
String Quartet in A minor, Op. 13 293
String Quartet in D major, Op. 44, No. 1 295
Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49 298
Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66 300
String Quintet No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 87 302
String Quartet No. 6 in F minor, Op. 80 304
OLIVIER MESSIAEN 308

Quatuor pour la fin de temps (“Quartet for
the End of Time”) 308
WOLFGANG AMADÈ MOZART 313

Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285 313
Oboe Quartet in F major, K. 370 315
Serenade in E-flat major for Wind Octet, K. 375b 317
String Quartet in G major, K. 387 319
String Quartet in D minor, K. 421/417b 322
String Quartet in E-flat major, K. 428/421b 325
Quintet in E-flat major for Piano and Winds, K. 452 327
String Quartet in B-flat major, Hunt, K. 458 329
String Quartet in C major, Dissonance, K. 465 330
Piano Quartet in G minor, K. 478 333
Piano Quartet in E-flat major, K. 493 335
Trio in E-flat major for Clarinet, Viola,
and Piano, K. 498 337
String Quartet in D major, Hoffmeister, K. 499 339
Piano Trio in B-flat major, K. 502 341
String Quintet in C major, K. 515 343
String Quintet in G minor, K. 516 344
Piano Trio in C major, K. 548 346
Divertimento in E-flat major for Violin, Viola,
and Cello, K. 563 347
String Quartet in D major, K. 575 350
Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581 352
String Quartet in F major, K. 590 354
String Quintet in D major, K. 593 356
String Quintet in E-flat major, K. 614 359
CARL NIELSEN 361

Wind Quintet, Op. 43 361
Contents xvii
FRANCIS POULENC 364

Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano 364
SERGEI PROKOFIEV 366

Overture on Hebrew Themes, Op. 34 366
String Quartet No. 2 in F major
(on Kabardinian Themes), Op. 92 367
MAURICE RAVEL 369

String Quartet in F major 369
Piano Trio 371
Sonata for Violin and Cello 374
STEVE REICH 377

Different Trains (interviews), for String Quartet and Tape 377
SILVESTRE REVUELTAS 381

Música de Feria (“Music of the Fair”) 381
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS 385

Septet in E-flat major for Two Violins, Viola,
Cello, Double Bass, Trumpet, and Piano, Op. 65 385
ARNOLD SCHOENBERG 388

Verklärte Nacht (“Transfigured Night”), Op. 4 388
String Quartet No. 2 in F-sharp minor, Op. 10 390
FRANZ SCHUBERT 393

Quintet in A major, Die Forelle
(“The Trout”), D. 667 393
Octet in F major, D. 803 396
String Quartet in A minor, Rosamunde, D. 804 398
String Quartet in D minor, Der Tod und das
Mädchen (“Death and the Maiden”), D. 810 400
String Quartet in G major, D. 887 402
Piano Trio in B-flat major, D. 898, and Notturno
in E-flat major, D. 897 404
Piano Trio in E-flat major, D. 929 407
String Quintet in C major, D. 956 409
CLARA WIECK SCHUMANN 413

Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 17 413
xviii Contents
ROBERT SCHUMANN 416

String Quartet in A minor, Op. 41, No. 1 416
String Quartet in A major, Op. 41, No. 3 419
Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44 420
Piano Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 47 422
Piano Trio No. 2 in F major, Op. 80 425
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH 428

Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57 428
Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67 430
String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73 433
String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 435
String Quartet No. 14 in F-sharp minor, Op. 142 437
String Quartet No. 15 in E-flat minor, Op. 144 440
JEAN SIBELIUS 443

String Quartet in D minor, Voces intimae
(“Intimate Voices”), Op. 56 443
BEDŘICH SMETANA 446

Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 15 446
String Quartet in E minor, Z mého života
(“From My Life”) 449
IGOR STRAVINSKY 452

Three Pieces for String Quartet 452
L’Histoire du Soldat and Suite from L’Histoire
du Soldat (“The Soldier’s Tale”) 455
Octet 458
KAROL SZYMANOWSKI 461

String Quartet No. 1 in C major, Op. 37 461
String Quartet No. 2, Op. 56 463
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY 466

String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 11 466
String Quartet No. 3 in E-flat minor, Op. 30 469
Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50 471
String Sextet in D minor, Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70 474
JOAN TOWER 478

Petroushskates 478
Contents xix
CARL MARIA VON WEBER 482

Trio for Flute, Cello, and Piano, Op. 63 482
ANTON WEBERN 486

Fünf Sätze für Streichquartett
(“Five Movements for String Quartet”), Op. 5 486
HUGO WOLF 489

String Quartet in D minor 489
Serenade in G major for String Quartet
(“Italian Serenade”) 492
Chamber Music
Anton Stepanovich Arensky
Born: June 30 (old style)/July 12 (new style), 1861 in
Novgorad, Russia
Died: February 12 (old style)/25 (new style), 1906 in
Terioki, Finland (now Zelenogorsk, Russia)
Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 32
Allegro moderato—Adagio
Scherzo: Allegro molto
Elegia: Adagio
Finale: Allegro non troppo—Andante—Adagio—Allegro molto
Work composed: 1894

Work dedicated: “À la mémoire de Charles Davidoff” (To the memory of Karl
Davïdov)
Work premiered: Probably December 1894 in either Moscow or St. Peters-
burg, by the violinist Jan Hrímalý, the cellist Anatoly Brandukov, and the
composer as pianist
Instrumentation: Violin, cello, and piano
he generation of Russian composers who came of age during the
T 1860s and ’70s were broadly split into two camps separated by a
porous dividing line. Individual composers might occasionally creep
over from one side to the other (and usually back again), but generally their
allegiance lay either with the Nationalists (most prominently the compos-
ers of the “Russian Five” or “Mighty Handful”—Mili Balakirev, Alexander
Borodin, Cesar Cui, Modest Musorgsky, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov), who
2 CHAMBER MUSIC: A LISTENER’S GUIDE
championed the use of music derived from Russian folk or liturgical sources,
or with those who meshed more closely with the central Germanic tradition,
most notably Tchaikovsky.
Arensky might have carried on the nationalistic tendencies of his teacher,
Rimsky-Korsakov, with whom he studied in St. Petersburg, but instead he
drifted toward the Tchaikovskian camp. Rimsky-Korsakov recalled him in
generally unflattering terms, though one does not have to read between the
lines very closely to sense that his account is hardly impartial: “According
to all testimony, his life had run a dissipated course between wine and card-
playing, yet his activity as a composer was most fertile. . . . He did work much
at composition, but that is just where he began to burn the candle at both
ends. Revels, card-playing, health undermined by this mode of living, gal-
loping consumption as the final result, dying at Nice, and death at last in
Finland. . . . In his youth Arensky had not escaped entirely my own influence;
later he fell under that of Tchaikovsky. He will soon be forgotten.”
An important professional opportunity came in Arensky’s direction in
1894. Mili Balakirev, the opinionated chief of the Nationalist wing of Rus-
sian composers, overcame his esthetic partisanship and recommended Aren-
sky to be his successor as the director of the Imperial Chapel in St. Petersburg.
Within a year Arensky would resign from the Moscow Conservatory and
move to St. Petersburg to assume that position. In 1894 he also unveiled
his second opera, Rafael, as a centerpiece of the First Congress of Russian
Artists, and he composed two chamber works that continue to receive per-
formances today: his Piano Trio No. 1 and his String Quartet No. 2. Both of
these chamber works were memorial pieces—the quartet in honor of Tchai-
kovsky, who had died the preceding year, and the trio to commemorate Karl
Yul’yevich Davïdov, who had died in 1889. Born in 1838 in the Courland
Governorate of Russia (now Latvia), Davïdov served a few years as principal
cellist of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra before returning to Russia to
become principal cellist of the Imperial Italian Opera, cellist of the Russian
Musical Society’s Quartet, cello professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory,
and from 1876 to 1887 the Conservatory’s director. Writing commemorative
chamber-music tributes was something of a tradition just then: Tchaikovsky
had composed his A-minor Piano Trio (1882) as a memorial to his teacher
Nikolai Rubinstein, and in 1893 Rachmaninoff wrote his Second Trio élé-
giaque in honor of Tchaikovsky.
Arensky’s D-minor Piano Trio is a full-scale work, its four movements
running more than a half hour and covering a broad spectrum of styles in the
process. The first movement is often compared to the corresponding section
of Mendelssohn’s much earlier D-minor Piano Trio (1839), though Arensky
proceeds with more relaxed luxury than Mendelssohn had. Arensky’s ingra-
tiating themes seem born of the salon, and the composer manipulates them
Anton Arensky 3
with consummate mastery and variety. The second movement is a Scherzo

in the sparkling mode of Saint-Saëns, reminiscent of that composer’s Piano
Concerto No. 2 almost to the point of parody, and the pianist’s fingers fly
across the keys in most spectacular fashion before the movement reaches its
whispered coda.
The Davïdov memorial is constructed specifically in the third movement,
which is actually headed Elegia. The string instruments install mutes for the
duration of this movement, which maintains quiet nobility: this is more a
dignified, reflective memorial service than a grief-racked funeral. Davïdov
had been a kind and encouraging presence during Arensky’s student years in
St. Petersburg, and the affection with which Arensky repays him is palpable
in this tender movement, which appropriately begins with the cello singing
the beautiful adagio melody in G minor. The middle of this slow movement—
effectively a Trio section—speeds up a notch (più mosso) and moves into G
major. Now it is the piano that is given the main melody as the strings waver
gently in the background. The thought breaks off in a grand pause, and then
Arensky offers the same “più mosso” music even more beautifully orchestrated,
with the violin playing the melody against the pizzicato cello and flutter-
ing figuration in the piano. One might argue that Arensky is treading water
through these sequence-filled passages; but if that is the case, at least he is a
swimmer of surpassing elegance, and he knows better than to stretch out his
sequences longer than he does. This second go-round of the “più mosso” music
also drifts off in silence, after which the violin picks up the train of thought
with the beautiful G-minor melody from the opening. Again, Arensky does
not settle for literal repetition. Instead he redistributes his music among the
players, fleshes out the piano part into rich handfuls of chords, and enriches
the texture through canonic gestures in which one instrument quietly con-
curs with what another has just said. On the final page the cello exhales the
principal melody one final time against the dotted rhythms of the piano’s
funeral-march accompaniment.
In the Finale we find not only original themes but also references to
melodies heard earlier—the principal theme of the Elegia (turned into the
major mode but still announced first by the cello) and, near the end, the gor-
geous, somewhat nostalgic “più mosso” theme of the Elegia. Arensky travels
well-worn paths in his D-minor Piano Trio, and listeners who put a premium
on novelty may therefore find the piece easy to dismiss as reactionary and
lightweight. And yet it is an easy piece to love thanks to Arensky’s undeni-
able skill in the time-honored methods of composing, his ever-delicate touch,
and—perhaps most important—his undeniable sincerity.
Arensky’s D-minor Trio was in the news in 2008, with the discovery of a
cache of some two hundred cylinders recorded in the 1890s by the businessman
and music aficionado Julius H. Block. Long thought lost or possibly destroyed
in World War II, they were rediscovered in a library in St. Petersburg. Among
the treasures were cylinders of portions of the D-minor Trio’s first three move-
ments, all played rhapsodically and at a vigorous pace. Whether this recorded
performance suggests “ideal” tempos for the work is open to dispute; it is
possible that the musicians were playing quicker than they might have liked
simply because they wanted to squeeze as much music as they could onto the
cylinders, which could only hold between two and just over four minutes of
material. The recordings were made on December 10, 1894, and the perform-
ers are identified: Arensky, as pianist, is joined by the violinist Jan Hrímalý
and the cellist Anatoly Brandukov. Details about the premiere of this work
being vague, we may be tempted to surmise that these were also the musicians
who first played the work in concert.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Born: March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Thuringia (Ger-
many)
Died: July 28, 1750, in Leipzig, Saxony (Germany)
BWV numbers: Johann Sebastian Bach’s works
are identified by “BWV” (sometimes “S”) numbers
assigned in Wolfgang Schmieder’s Thematisch-sys-
tematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke Johann
Sebastian Bachs: Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (1950/1990).
Trio Sonata in G major for Flute, Violin, and Basso Continuo,

BWV 1038
Largo
Vivace
Adagio
Presto
J
ohann Sebastian Bach left a modest legacy of true chamber music, if
we understand the term to mean one-on-a-part compositions for small
groups of instruments that don’t invite doubling of multiple players on a
single line. That’s how it looks on the page, anyway; in practice, many of his
apparently larger pieces may have been conceived, or at least performed, with
hardly more than what we would consider chamber forces. Then, too, we find
in Bach occasions where orchestral and chamber writing co-exist within a
single piece. For familiar examples we could turn to the Brandenburg Concer-
tos, all six of which are logically classified in his catalogue as orchestral works.
Nonetheless, the variously constituted orchestras sit silent for the slow move-
ments in three of these concertos while the solo instruments play exquisite
pieces of chamber music: in the Second Brandenburg Concerto, an Andante
that could have been plucked from a sonata a quattro for flute, oboe, violin,
and basso continuo; in the Fifth, a corresponding Affettuoso (originally Ada-
gio) for flute, violin, obbligato harpsichord, and basso continuo; and in the
Sixth an Adagio ma non troppo for a trio sonata texture of two violas and basso
continuo. In such pieces as these we find chamber music and symphonic
music living cheek by jowl. We may even sense that we have stumbled into a
historical moment when the orchestra is emerging, not yet fully or certainly
formed, from the more intimate chamber formulations that gave rise to it.
Evidence relating to the surviving manuscript parts of Bach’s Trio Sonata
in G major (BWV 1038) suggests that it was written sometime between 1732
and 1735. This piece perfectly exemplifies the sort of musicological problems
that swirl about his chamber works. There is no question that Bach wrote
at least its bass part, which is identical to that of his G-major Violin Sonata
(BWV 1021), also from that period. Considerable controversy reigns over the
trio sonata’s upper lines, which are for flute and violin. Few scholars today
subscribe to the formerly widespread belief that Bach wrote the melody parts
himself. Most posit that he had a student derive them from the pre-existent
violin sonata, but a few plot the process in reverse, suggesting that the trio
sonata came first and that the violin sonata represents a sometimes awkward
student reduction.
In 1775 the composer’s son (and pupil) Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
shared with the Bach biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel a description of his
father’s mode of teaching composition, which jibes perfectly with the general
idea of how this trio sonata came about:
In composition he started his pupils right in with what was practical, and omit-
ted all the dry species of counterpoint that are given in Fux and others. His
pupils had to begin their studies by learning pure four-part thorough bass. From
this they went to chorales; first he added the basses himself, and they had to
invent the alto and tenor. . . . As for the invention of ideas, he required this from
the very beginning, and anyone who had none he advised to stay away from
composition altogether. With his children as well as with other pupils he did
not begin the study of composition until he had seen work of theirs in which
he detected talent.
If Bach did not write the upper lines himself, it remains a mystery who
did. He taught numerous composition students once he moved to Leipzig
in 1723, and many of them reached a level of accomplishment that would
have enabled them to undertake such an exercise. The musicologist Ste-
phen Daw has suggested that the melody lines may have been “written by
a young, fashion-conscious Leipzig student, such as Friedrich Gottlieb Wild
or Christoph Gottlob Wecker.” Wecker (1706–74) studied with Bach from
Johann Sebastian Bach 7
1723 to 1729, as did Wild (1700–1762) from 1726 to 1735. Both of these
now obscure souls went on to minor careers as church musicians, Wecker
in Schweidnitz, Silesia, Wild in St. Petersburg. Wild might have an edge as
a candidate since his study with Bach coincides more exactly to the period
when this trio sonata was seemingly composed, and since a recommendation
Bach wrote to support one of Wild’s job applications mentions that he was a
capable flutist as well as a keyboard player. Daw’s description of the mystery
student as “fashion-conscious” rings true. If the raison d’être for this piece was
principally didactic, the composer nonetheless found an outlet for expressiv-
ity that sometimes strikes us as personal. Especially in the third movement we
encounter a hyper-emotive style that is connected to both the dense mourn-
fulness we find in some of J. S. Bach’s sacred works and the highly charged, if
stylized, sentiment that would grow popular with C. P. E. Bach’s generation.
Notwithstanding the musicological complications, the G-major Trio
Sonata is easy to love, with its melodic lines tracing contrapuntal coils above
Bach’s elegantly plotted bass. The sonata’s four-movement form is typical of
the Italian Baroque “church sonatas,” with their characteristic succession
of slow-fast-slow-fast. But within this structure, the work’s procedure shows
some distinctive aspects. In the broad opening Largo, derived from an initial
upward scale motif, the composer writes out what would normally be notated
as a literal repeat of both halves in order to create a variation on the mate-
rial the second time around; in other words, instead of a simple A-A-B-B
structure, the material is here massaged considerably into A-A'-B-B'. The
fast movements—the second and fourth—are notable for their brevity. In the
second-movement Vivace, less than a minute long, only one theme is brought
into serious play, and in the concluding Presto, contrapuntal procedures are
so telescoped that the movement sounds almost like a mere fugal exposition,
rather than the complete (if miniature) fugue that it actually is.
Sonata sopr’il Soggetto Reale a Traversa, Violino e Continuo,

from Musical Offering (Musikalisches Opfer), BWV 1079
Largo
Allegro
Andante
Allegro
Johann Sebastian Bach fathered twenty children, of whom eleven would sur-
vive to their adulthoods. Four among them became distinguished compos-
ers in their own right: Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann
Christoph Friedrich, and Johann Christian. The third of the sons (but the
second to live beyond childhood), Carl Philipp Emanuel (“C. P. E.”) was
appointed in 1740, at the age of twenty-six, as chamber musician to King
Frederick II “the Great” of Prussia, who had just acceded to the throne. The
music-loving Frederick surrounded himself with a stellar assemblage of about
forty staff musicians, not counting singers, and C. P. E. was his star keyboard
player.
Johann Sebastian visited C. P. E. twice during the latter’s tenure at Pots-
dam, first in the summer of 1741, then again in May 1747, that time perhaps
with his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, in tow. The Musikalisches Opfer
(Musical Offering) traces its genesis to the latter visit. Whether Bach had
been expressly invited to Potsdam by the flute-playing monarch or whether
Frederick was surprised to find Bach’s name on his daily roster of visitors is
unclear—sources differ—but there is little question that the king was pleased
to find Germany’s most learned musician in his presence, and he reportedly
escorted Bach through the palace, stopping to have him improvise on the
various keyboard instruments they encountered. These included a couple of
newfangled fortepianos built by Gottfried Silbermann, which Bach seems to
have generally liked and which he would go on to represent as a selling agent
in Leipzig.
In 1754 the Musikalische Bibliothek, published by a music society to
which C. P. E. belonged, ran an obituary of Johann Sebastian, who had died
four years earlier. Prepared jointly by C. P. E. and Johann Friedrich Agricola
(a devoted Bach pupil), the obituary made mention of Johann Sebastian’s
last visit:
In the year 1747 he made a journey to Berlin and was graciously allowed on
this occasion to perform in the presence of His Majesty the King of Prussia at
Potsdam. His Majesty himself played a fugue subject for him, on which Bach
improvised a fugue at once on the piano, to the especial pleasure of His Majesty.
Hereupon His Majesty demanded to hear a six-part fugue, which command was
also fulfilled at once, on a theme selected by Bach, to the astonishment of
the King and the assembled musicians. After his return to Leipzig, he wrote a
three-part and a six-part Ricercar besides various other smaller pieces based on
the same theme presented to him by His Majesty, and dedicated the copper
engraving of the work to the King.
The event generated great interest, and not just among musicians. On May
11, 1747, the newspaper Berliner Nachrichten devoted an enthusiastic arti-
cle to the soirée—the only time in his life Bach appears to have achieved
front-page coverage. It’s not at all certain that Frederick the Great himself
Johann Sebastian Bach 9
wrote the theme proposed; most musicologists agree that at the very least it
was coached out of him by, for example, C. P. E. The theme’s contours are
distinctive and easily remembered and recognized: a rising minor triad lead-
ing to a minor sixth, from there a plummet of a diminished seventh, a return
to the fifth and a sinuous, chromatic descent that zeroes in on the tonic, with
a bit of melodic embellishment at the cadence.
The Musical Offering was published in September 1747, four months after
the composer’s visit to Potsdam. Bach had it printed in an edition of two
hundred copies, each of which comprised five smaller booklets containing
several movements apiece. Musicologists have debated whether this curious
format was arbitrary or not, and whether Bach implied any particular order
for the work’s sixteen movements or, indeed, if he even envisioned most of it
as music that would actually be performed.
The set comprises two ricercars (the word was anciently used as a rough
synonym for “fugue”), ten canons of various sorts, and a four-movement trio
sonata, which Bach titles Sonata sopr’il Soggetto Reale (“Sonata on the Royal
Subject”). Problems with the ordering of selections at least do not affect
the movements of the trio sonata, which unrolls according to the slow-fast-
slow-fast plan typical of its genre. The question of intended instrumenta-
tion, which is unaddressed or vague nearly throughout the Musical Offering,
is blessedly explicit when it comes to the trio sonata: it is scored for flute,
violin, and basso continuo. That the flute should take a soloist’s role is natu-
ral, given Frederick’s predilection for that instrument. Bach’s pupil Johann
Philipp Kirnberger, who later published his solutions of several of the canons,
actually wrote out a realization of the sonata’s entire continuo part, the only
such example created within hailing distance of the composer’s supervision.
In the Sonata sopr’il Soggetto Reale Frederick’s theme appears verbatim
only in the second movement (Allegro)—and there abundantly. To ears by
now accustomed to its contours it seems to hover at the edges from the out-
set. Suspense mounts until finally the subject is unleashed a minute into the
movement, given out in the bass line first in the dominant key (starting on
G), then a few measures later in the tonic (on C). That would be enough:
Bach has met his requirements. But we move on to the movement’s balancing
second half, where the royal theme suddenly jumps out from the violin part
and then (following a C. P. E.-like rhythmic caesura) from the flute prior to
a return to music from near the movement’s beginning, including a revisit of
the bass-line royal-theme quotations.
Though these are the only verbatim iterations of the royal theme in
the trio sonata, allusions to it surface throughout. Both of the slow move-
ments are exquisite examples of Bach’s highly expressive affettuoso style,
though neither is expressly marked with that term. In the initial Largo—its
opening bass line being a filled-out version of the royal theme—we find
the intensity of emotional expression familiar from Bach’s cantatas, while
the third-movement Andante bathes itself in the sighing Empfindsamer Stil
popular in the Potsdam Court. The concluding Allegro is cast as a high-
spirited gigue in 6/8 meter. The movement’s main motif is clearly a rhyth-
mic variation on Frederick’s theme, and it is worked out with exorbitant
subtlety of counterpoint, expressive chromatic progressions, and layers of
rhythmic contrasts.
Samuel Barber
Born: March 9, 1910, in West Chester, Pennsylvania
Died: January 23, 1981, in New York City
String Quartet, Op. 11
Molto allegro e appassionato

Molto adagio [attacca]
Molto allegro (come prima)
Work composed: Begun in the summer of 1935 and completed the next year
in a provisional form; Barber continued to revise the work—particularly its
finale—through 1943.
Work dedicated: To Louise and Sidney Homer
Work premiered: In its provisional form on December 14, 1936, by the Pro
Arte Quartet at the Villa Aurelia in Rome; in its final form on May 28, 1943,
by the Budapest Quartet at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Instrumentation: Two violins, viola, and cello
s its low opus number suggests, Samuel Barber’s String Quartet was an
A early work. In May 1935 the twenty-five-year-old composer received

two awards in quick succession: a Pulitzer traveling scholarship
(announced on May 6) and the Prix de Rome (on May 9). That October he
left for the two-year residency in Rome attached to the latter prize, and from
there he undertook considerable travels elsewhere in Europe. This was a fine
arrangement for him, as his long-term companion and fellow composer Gian
Carlo Menotti came from Milan and was delighted that they could spend
time so conveniently in Italy. From mid-May to the end of October 1936 the
couple lived in an idyllic mountain cottage in St. Wolfgang in the Salzkam-

mergut, and that is where Barber’s String Quartet began to germinate.
Before he left for Austria, Barber had alerted Orlando Cole, the cellist of
the Curtis String Quartet, that a string quartet was in the offing, and he sug-
gested that the Curtis Quartet might introduce the envisioned piece during
a European tour they had already scheduled. But his work proceeded more
slowly than he had hoped, and by the end of August Barber alerted Cole that
the piece would not be ready in time for them to prepare it for their tour.
Work advanced, if slowly. On September 19 he wrote to Cole: “I have just
finished the slow movement of my quartet today—it is a knock-out! Now for
a Finale.”
The finale he produced would become a bee in Barber’s bonnet. It served
to conclude the work’s premiere, on December 14, 1936, at the Villa Aurelia
in Rome, when it was played by the Pro Arte Quartet. Barber was distressed
that the honor of the premiere went to an ensemble other than the Cur-
tis String Quartet, but the scheduling proved impossible for that foursome.
Immediately after the premiere Barber withdrew the finale for a rewrite; and
when the Curtis String Quartet finally played the piece—at a private pre-
birthday concert for Barber on March 7, 1937, at the Curtis Institute—they
presented only the opening Molto allegro and the ensuing Molto adagio. By
April Barber had finished rewriting his finale, which the Gordon Quartet
included when it played the work at the Library of Congress that month. The
finale was especially admired in this concert, but Barber remained uneasy
and ended up recasting it yet again. By the time the piece was published, in
1943, Barber had settled on the structure as we now know it: a solid opening
movement in sonata form, followed by the famous slow movement and then
a very telescoped finale—only two minutes long—that revisits themes from
the opening movement, thereby attaining a cyclic form for the quartet as a
whole. The finale is presented in the score not as an independent movement
but rather as an appendage to the second, from which it emerges attacca (i.e.,
without a break).
The opening movement begins with a strongly etched, ultra-dramatic
motif announced in unison by the four players; the effect recalls Beethoven’s
Serioso Quartet (Op. 95). A second theme area involves chorale-like music
of a slinky personality, and a third focuses on Barber’s characteristic ability to
spin out a lyrical melody of uncommon beauty, this one being of a yearning
sort that would have been admired in movie scores of the ’30s and ’40s.
The quartet as whole is in the key of B minor, but a part of the open-
ing theme involves a starkly demarcated semitone. So it is that the opening
movement ends pondering the distance that separates notes a semitone apart;
and this serves to link the first movement, in B minor, to the second, in the
Samuel Barber 13
chromatically close but harmonically distant realm of B-flat minor. The tonic
of B minor returns in the brief revisit of the fast material at the quartet’s end,
but this B-flat-minor second movement is the heart of the work. Its materi-
als are slight: a very slow and extended melody built from stepwise intervals,
slightly varied in its numerous repetitions, uncoiling over (or in the midst of)
sustained chords that change with note-by-note reluctance, all of it building
into a powerful climax at the high end of the instruments’ range and then
quickly receding to the contemplative quietude that ultimately defines this
musical expanse. It is indeed “a knock-out,” as Barber reported, and it rose
to superstardom when Barber arranged it as a stand-alone Adagio for Strings
for five-part string orchestra (two violins, two violas, and cello), which was
first heard on November 5, 1938, in a broadcast by Arturo Toscanini and the
NBC Symphony.
Toscanini soon included the piece in his European and South Ameri-
can tour programs, and this sparked a debate among esthetes over the mer-
its of modernist versus retrograde musical style, with Barber being deemed
to adhere to the latter. Though interesting, the argument was moot, and
Barber’s Adagio for Strings promptly became an icon of American music,
particularly associated with grief-laden situations. It was played at the presi-
dential funerals of both Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, and in
1986 it contributed to the heart-wrenching impact of Oliver Stone’s film
Platoon. Even composers who would themselves be cited as more forward-
looking presences in American music had no trouble applauding the spe-
cial qualities of Barber’s Adagio. In a 1982 BBC broadcast, Aaron Copland
declared: “It’s really well felt, it’s believable, you see, it’s not phoney. . . . It
comes straight from the heart, to use old-fashioned terms. The sense of con-
tinuity, the steadiness of the flow, the satisfaction of the arch that it creates
from beginning to end. They’re all very gratifying, satisfying, and it makes
you believe in the sincerity which he obviously put into it.” And William
Schuman, in the same broadcast: “It’s so precise emotionally. The emotional
climate is never left in doubt. It begins, it reaches its climax, it makes its
point, and it goes away. For me it’s never a war-horse; when I hear it played
I’m always moved by it.”
After transcribing the Adagio for string orchestra Barber would go on to
adapt it also for chorus, in 1967, as a setting of the Agnus Dei. He bestowed his
nihil obstat on arrangements made for organ by William Strickland, for clari-
net choir by Lucien Caillet, and for woodwind ensemble by John O’Reilly.
Still, it is as a string quartet that this remarkable movement was conceived.
The quartet was hard-won, and although Barber did accept a commission for
a Second String Quartet in 1947, he never managed to move beyond a few
pages of sketches for that work.
Summer Music for Wind Quintet, Op. 31
Slow and Indolent—With motion—Faster—Lively, still faster—Faster
Work composed: 1956 on commission from the Chamber Music Society

of Detroit
Work premiered: March 20, 1956, at the Detroit Institute of Arts in Detroit,
Michigan, in a concert of the Chamber Music Society of Detroit; played on
that occasion by five principal players from the Detroit Symphony: flutist
James Pellerite, oboist Arno Mariotti, clarinetist Albert Luconi, hornist Ray
Alonge, and bassoonist Charles Sirard.
Instrumentation: Flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, and bassoon
Summer Music came about through an unusual commission, extended by the

Chamber Music Society of Detroit in 1953, that received a good deal of pub-
licity at the time. Instead of negotiating a lump-sum payment for his new
work, Barber signed on to a plan whereby the Society would ask Detroit’s
music lovers to pledge whatever they wished toward underwriting the project.
Most donations arrived in amounts ranging from one dollar to five dollars,
but they arrived in abundance. I don’t know how much Barber received, but
the Society guaranteed that the sum would not be less than $2,000. Barber
resisted at first, as he explained:
The idea was if this caught on, music societies around the country would take
up similar collections and use the funds to commission young local composers
who needed experience and exposure. I made a speech against myself, essen-
tially, telling them it was crazy that they didn’t use local composers. It was
certainly done in Bach’s day. But they didn’t like that idea. They wanted the
same old tired names—Copland, Sessions, Harris, me—so it never got off the
ground.
In any case, Barber signed on to compose a septet for three winds, three
strings, and piano. As the piece emerged, its forces morphed into a sextet and
finally into a wind quintet, the eventual scoring reflecting how impressed
Barber had been by his exposure to the New York Woodwind Quintet during
the summer of 1954 in Blue Hill, Maine. That ensemble would play a central
role in the creation of Barber’s piece. Back in New York during the winter
of 1955 he observed them in rehearsals mastering exercises crafted by John
Barrows, the group’s hornist, to address advanced technical issues of wind-
quintet playing. Armed with what he had learned, Barber turned some of
Samuel Barber 15
those technical challenges to expressive use. On November 14 he arranged

for the New York Woodwind Quintet to read through the piece, after which
its flutist, Samuel Baron, reported: “We were completely gassed! What a won-
derful new quintet conception. Barber has studied our charts and has written
some of our favorite effects. The piece is very hard, but so far it sounds just
beautiful to us.”
They were understandably disappointed that the circumstances of the
commission would not allow them to play the premiere, which was reserved
for Detroit (on March 20, 1956). Perhaps they were fortunate in the long
run. Although the Detroit premiere was warmly received and the critic for
the Detroit News complimented the piece for its “mood of pastoral seren-
ity,” Barber felt, upon hearing the work in concert, that it was too long. He
therefore set about effecting cuts, working with the New York Woodwind
Quintet, who actually managed to dissuade him from deleting one section
that made prominent use of some of the “problem chords” from Barrows’
exercises. Summer Music reached its final form and the ensemble finally was
able to program it for the first time on April 27, 1956, at a concert of the
Harvard Musical Association. It would instantly become a standard item in
their repertoire.
In addition to drawing inspiration from the group’s technical exercises,
Barber had also gotten himself going on the piece by borrowing thematic
material from a work he had composed in 1945 for The Standard Oil Hour, a
program on the NBC radio network. Titled Horizon, it was a short orchestral
piece “on Arabian themes” (such was NBC’s request), and it was played for
the broadcast on June 17, 1945, by the San Francisco Symphony, conducted
by Efrem Kurtz. What had been uttered by a pair of bassoons at the out-
set of Horizon was transposed up a step to become the beginning of Summer
Music; and another motif a bit into the first movement—starting with three
notes plunging by the interval of an eleventh—also derives from Horizon. By
the way, I doubt that anyone not knowing in advance about the supposed
“Arabian” content of Horizon would make that geographical connection. To
me it sounds essentially French and particularly indebted to the Debussy of
La Mer or Images for Orchestra.
Summer Music is a difficult piece from the performers’ standpoint, but
audiences are grateful for its placid, often witty, rather Gallic gentility. (Not
too placid, though; Barber complained that interpreters tended to play the
piece too slowly.) Cast as a single movement with five discrete sections, it
conveys a sense of nostalgic lassitude such as we treasure so much in Barber’s
Knoxville, Summer of 1915, which would follow shortly, in 1947, though it
bubbles with considerable energy in the middle. Near the end of his life Bar-
ber told an interviewer, “It’s supposed to be evocative of summer—summer
meaning languid, not killing mosquitos.”
Heat and lethargy infuse the opening, which is marked “Slow and indo-
lent.” Horn and bassoon strike a bluesy pose à la Gershwin or (with their
implications of bitonality) Milhaud, and above them flute and then clari-
net release fluttering roulades that descend through the thickening texture,
finally being buried deep in the bassoon. The oboe sings out a long-phrased
melody, which is worked out in a mood of utmost relaxation. The tempo now
picks up and the instruments putter in very quick staccatos (a naked test of
ensemble precision). “Lively, still faster,” urges Barber, and the music takes
on something of a hoedown flavor—effectively a central trio to the scherzo
of the staccato music, which returns to round out this section. (The unmis-
takably American sound of the quick “trio” section is not characteristic of
Barber, who was often cited in his day for completely resisting the “yippee-
yi-yay” tendencies of numerous mid-century scores by, for example, Aaron
Copland and Roy Harris.) This gives way to a return of the oboe’s languid
melody. Now all the principal material is revisited through quick allusions:
the staccato section (slowed down considerably), the indolent sounds of the
opening. A new section emerges (marked “Faster”), dance-like, and modal,
owing something to Dvořák and treated at considerable length. Memories of
the listless opening return near the end, but the final page picks up energy
and dies away in a quiet, rustling scurry.
Béla Victor János Bartók
Born: March 25, 1881, in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary,
now Sînnicolau Mare, Romania
Died: September 26, 1945, in New York City
BB and Sz numbers: The “BB numbers” attached to
Bartók’s compositions refer to entries in the chrono-
logical catalogue prepared by musicologist László
Somfai and published in the volume Béla Bartók:
Composition, Concepts, and Autograph Sources (Berke-
ley, 1996). Somfai’s catalogue supersedes the one pro-
duced in 1957 by András Szöllösy, Bibliographie des
oeuvres musicales et écrits musicologiques de Béla Bartók,
but one still finds frequent references to the “Sz num-
bers” of that earlier reference book. These numbers
really are helpful to the general music-lover since
many of Bartók’s compositions have very similar titles
and since he stopped assigning opus number to his
works in mid-career.
String Quartet No. 2, Op. 17 (BB 75; Sz.67)
Moderato
Allegro molto capriccioso
Lento
Work composed: 1914–17 in Rákoskeresztúr, Hungary (then a village just to

the east of Budapest, but subsumed into the city in 1950)
Work dedicated: To the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet
Work premiered: March 3, 1918, in Budapest by the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet
Hungarians revere Béla Bartók as their nation’s greatest twentieth-century

composer, and rightly so. But today any Hungarian who should decide to make
a pilgrimage to pay respects at the site where Bartók was born would have
to leave the country. He was indeed born in Hungary—or properly put, in
the Greater Hungarian sector of the Austro-Hungarian Empire—in the small
town of Nagyszentmiklós. The town hasn’t moved, of course, but political
boundaries in that part of the world have proved fluid over the years. So it was
that the Treaty of Trianon, drafted in 1920 to divvy up the spoils of World War
I, turned what had been Nagyszentmiklós, at the northern end of the southern
Hungarian province of Torontál, into Sînnicolau Mare, in the state of Timiş in
western Romania, just a few miles in from the border of modern Hungary.
Bartók grew up understanding that in his part of the world cultures were
local and national borders capricious. He grew fascinated by the folk music of
his region and beyond, collecting songs in Hungary, Romania, Ruthenia, Serbia,
Croatia, Bulgaria, Turkey, and North Africa. Most of these excursions left their
mark on Bartók’s own compositions, sometimes in an obvious way (as in his
many pieces that consist of harmonizations of intact melodies), sometimes more
profoundly absorbed into his distinctive brand of modernism. But just as folk-
inflected sounds waft through his music, so do echoes of important strands of
the “high-art” musical avant-garde of his time (including very prominently the
harmonic Impressionism of Debussy and the breaking-point post-Romanticism
of Schoenberg) or of past generations (such as the contrapuntal proclivities of
Bach or the formal balance and dramatic pacing of Beethoven and Brahms).
Frank Whitaker, a British journalist who in 1926 embarked on the first
biography ever of Bartók but failed to get beyond the first chapter, did manage
to contribute a pellucid description of the composer for a BBC publication in
1932: “Béla Bartók is a quiet little man with a springy walk and a complexion
like faded parchment. His lean, alert face suggests the man of forty, his white
hair and scholar’s stoop the man of sixty. . . . The English words he uses often-
est to describe his music are ‘provoking’ and ‘unaccustomed.’ For instance, he
will say, ‘My Bagatelles were my first provoking work,’ or ‘My second string
quartet was too unaccustomed for the public of the day.’ ”
This “too unaccustomed” Second String Quartet may reflect its com-
poser’s state of mind during World War I. Bartók was deeply affected by the
outbreak of the war in the summer of 1914. Several months later, on Octo-
ber 30, he wrote to his friend Rev. Sámuel Bobál, a Slovak minister: “I also
belong to the age-group which is to be called up for military service. There’s a
good chance that I shall be rejected on health grounds. But nowadays there’s
no knowing anything in advance.” As it turned out, he received a medical
deferment and instead was assigned by the state to collect folk songs from
Béla Bartók 19
soldiers—a mission that agreed with him perfectly. Still, the cloud of war
hung over everybody. To another friend, János Buşiţia-Belényes, he wrote on
May 20, 1915: “My long silence has been due to the fact that every now and
then I am thrown into a state of depression by the war—a condition which,
in my case, alternates with a kind of devil-may-care attitude.”
Perhaps we have that devil-may-care streak to thank for the fact that
Bartók’s productivity did not grind to a halt during the war. On the contrary,
these proved to be relatively fertile years, and even in the straitened circum-
stances the composer continued to see some of his musical colleagues, includ-
ing Imre Waldbauer and Jenö Kerpely. Bartók’s elder son, Béla, Jr., spoke of
his family’s home life during the war in an interview published in 1976 in the
New Hungarian Quarterly: “I knew quite certainly that the members of the
Waldbauer String Quartet were here separately, and also together. I recall
Waldbauer and Kerpely were here in uniform, being on war service. The Sec-
ond String Quartet was completed on the occasion of a visit like this.” The
Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet was honored with the dedication of this work,
which they unveiled in Budapest on March 3, 1918.
In the Second String Quartet we find Bartók working in a freely chro-
matic and rhythmically complex idiom, meticulously molding his themes
and motives into tight and rigorous musical proceedings. Bartók here contin-
ued to develop his originality as a structuralist. The relationships of tempos
among movements are unorthodox compared to the progressive acceleration
of the First Quartet: a Moderato leads to an Allegro molto capriccioso and then
to a concluding, unearthly Lento. The spirit of the writing in every case mir-
rors what one might reasonably expect as typical of those tempos. Bartók’s
respected colleague Zoltán Kodály described the three movements as “1.) A
quiet life; 2.) Joy; 3.) Sorrow.” Otherwise put, it is a progression that may
first evoke normality, then Bartók’s “devil-may-care” exhilaration (and, in
the brief middle episode of the second movement, outright nonchalance),
and finally his lamenting depression over the sad state of things.
String Quartet No. 3 (BB 93; Sz.85)
Prima parte: Moderato (attacca)

Seconda parte: Allegro (attacca)
Ricapitulazione della prima parte: Moderato (attacca)
Coda: Allegro molto
Work composed: September 1927 in Budapest

Work dedicated: To the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia
Work premiered: December 30, 1928, in Philadelphia by violinists Mischa

Mischakoff and David Dubinsky, violist Samuel Lifschey, and cellist William
Van der Berg
Bartók composed his Third Quartet in Budapest in September 1927, com-

pleting it at the end of that month, and shortly thereafter embarked on a
ten-week American tour. Usually reliable reference sources reflect consider-
able disagreement about the ensuing chronology—extending even to details
of the premieres—but one credible explanation has Bartók learning in the
course of his trip, from Hungarian-American friends, about a competition for
new chamber works being sponsored by the august Musical Fund Society of
Philadelphia. Following his return to Hungary he submitted his new quartet,
which ended up sharing the first prize of $6,000 with a largely forgotten work
by Alfredo Casella, his Serenata for clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, violin, cello,
and piano. (Among the 643 entries they edged out was Szymanowski’s String
Quartet No. 2.) In appreciation he dedicated this quartet to the Society.
The work was played as part of the Musical Fund Society competition
proceedings—though with the composer not identified—and it appears to
have received its public premiere in Philadelphia on December 30, 1928,
by the Mischakoff/Dubinsky/Lifschey/Van der Berg Quartet. This fell within
the time during which the Society held exclusive performance rights for the
winning works, a period of three months following the announcement of the
awards. Other ensembles were waiting in the wings to champion this piece
abroad. The Kolisch Quartet played a BBC broadcast performance of it in
London on February 12, 1939, and the Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet (identify-
ing itself as the Hungarian Quartet when on tour) presented the first London
concert performance of the piece precisely a week later, at Wigmore Hall
on February 19, 1929 (some sources cite this as the world premiere, almost
certainly in error). The Kolisch Quartet played it in Frankfurt two days later
in a concert of the International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM),
and would go on to premiere Bartók’s Fifth and Sixth Quartets in coming
decades.
The Third and Fourth String Quartets stand as a pair, the latter being
completed exactly a year after the former. Though not as “abstract” as the
Third, the athletically dissonant Fourth shares its general musical vocabulary,
to the extent that some commentators have referred to it as continuing the
conversation begun in the Third. It is probably safe to say that of the six these
are the most distant from traditional tonality in their harmonic behavior,
although the Third is anchored on the note C-sharp and the Fourth is based
Béla Bartók 21
on C. Having said this, we should also acknowledge that the centripetal force
of C-sharp in the Third Quartet is not at all constant; but since that note
reigns over the beginning and the end, it does seem to occupy a special place
in the tonal hierarchy. The interval of the tritone fuels much of Bartók’s
structural development in this work, and the fact that it is the least stable of
all note combinations adds greatly to the sense of tonal ambiguity and infuses
the piece with an unremitting sense of tension that can prove unnerving. It
has been remarked that this is the Bartók quartet that most approximates the
general feel of the Viennese Expressionists; the music of Alban Berg comes
particularly to mind in terms of this piece’s general effect. As it happens,
Bartók had traveled to Baden-Baden, Germany, in July 1927 to perform his Piano
Sonata in a concert that also included Berg’s Lyric Suite for String Quartet.
Unlike Berg, Bartók did not work within the twelve-tone method devised
by Schoenberg (whose own Third String Quartet dates from the same year),
but its sound-world is nonetheless dissonant, often to the point of harshness.
In the Third Quartet rhythmic brashness overshadows melodic content, with
captivating metric patterns providing the sense of continuity that in earlier
music had been all but automatically assigned to well-developed melodies.
A listener trying to follow this quartet as a succession of tunes will be constantly
frustrated by a perpetual parade of melodic motifs that, when all is said and
done, make slight effect in and of themselves. The motifs do develop locally,
sometimes to the extent of being treated in canon or in inversion, but their
variation is perpetual and it is Bartók’s vibrant rhythms that sweep us along.
The architecture of the Third Quartet displays a rather simple layout in
an A-B-A’-B’ pattern. Such two-part (or four-part) balanced forms surface in
other Bartók works from the 1920s, including his Second Sonata for Violin
and Piano and his Rhapsodies for Violin and Piano and for Cello and Piano.
The four movements—or perhaps we should call them sections—are all con-
nected into a single fifteen-minute span, making this the shortest of Bartók’s
quartets. The character changes greatly along the way, offering typically Bar-
tókian vistas: Magyar folk-scales and rhythms, mysterious “night music” of
chirping insects, brilliant excursions of harmonically dense counterpoint,
dreamlike reminiscence of vaguely remembered music (from the opening
part) in the Ricapitulazione, mystical secretiveness in the Coda.
Among the early appreciators of this quartet was the philosopher-critic
Theodor Adorno, who considered it the composer’s best work to date. In a
1929 essay, he pointed out in detail how in the Third Quartet Bartók returned
to this favored genre enriched in specific ways by the musical experiments he
had conducted since completing his Second Quartet a decade earlier. Adorno
concluded his article with an insightful observation about the essential sound
of this piece:
He has wrested from neo-classicism, which he has left behind, the thing one
would least have expected: new color. . . . The counterpoint has unloosed all its
colors and injected the wealth of nuances into the tension between black and
white that had otherwise dictated Bartók’s sound. The remote possibilities of
the instruments bend willingly to his hand, as do the broad spans of multivocal
chords. In the Third Quartet, Bartók made his actual discovery of the produc-
tivity of color. It not only guarantees this masterwork but opens a perspective
on what will follow.
Allegro
Prestissimo, con sordino
Non troppo lento
Allegretto pizzicato
Allegro molto
Work composed: July through September 1928

Work dedicated: To the Pro Arte Quartet (violinists Alphonse Onnou and
Laurent Halleux, violist Germain Prévost, and cellist Robert Maas)
Work premiered: February 22, 1929, in a London radio broadcast by the Wald-
bauer-Kerpely Quartet; the same group played the work’s concert premiere, on
March 20, 1929, in Budapest.
In a number of pieces Bartók was drawn to “arch” forms, large symmetrical

structures of which the five-movement layouts of the Fourth and Fifth Quar-
tets are exemplars. The Fourth String Quartet, therefore, may be taken as a sort
of palindrome (in a general sense), with the first and fifth movements (both
being Allegros) bearing some kinship, the second and fourth similarly reflect-
ing each other (both are scherzos), and the third standing as a fulcrum in the
middle. That relaxed third movement, the central moment, is itself structured
in a symmetrical form, its ternary A-B-A layout serving as an exquisite turn-
about for the overarching A-B-C-B'-A' structure of the entire quartet.
These relationships are most immediately born out in the lengths of the
movements and in their overall emotional casts. That the formal plan extends
to the tonalities of the various movements may be less apparent to listeners
in light of the work’s very dissonant character, but in fact the balance—if
not precise symmetry—is maintained in this regard as well. The first and
Béla Bartók 23
fifth movements define C as the overall tonal center. The second movement
is centered a major third above (in E) and the fourth movement a major
third below (in A-flat). The slow movement, a fine specimen of Bartók’s ner-
vous “night music” style, is the most sinuous and equivocal in regard to its
tonality, which centers on A. In this middle movement the cello sings out a
long-spanning, highly ornamented melody that musicologists have identified
(depending on their biases) as Bartók’s original “take” on a folk lament of the
Hungarian verbunkos variety or else on a Romanian hora lungǎ, a song form
Bartók had encountered in 1912–13 during his ethnological work in north-
ern Transylvania. Bartók himself described the hora lungǎ as “a single melody
in numerous variants [whose] features are strong, instrumental character, very
ornamented, and indeterminate content structure.” The themes of the paired
movements (I and V, II and IV) display considerable kinship, further unifying
this tightly structured composition.
Bartók generally avoided providing commentary about his music but he
did describe his Fourth Quartet briefly but cogently in an essay:
The work is in five movements; their character corresponds to Classical sonata

form. The slow movement is the kernel of the work; the other movements
are, as it were, arranged in layers around it. Movement IV is a free variation
of II, and I and V have the same thematic material; that is, around the kernel
(Movement III), metaphorically speaking, I and V are the outer, II and IV the
inner layers.
Such an observation does nothing to convey the bristling quality of Bar-

tók’s Fourth Quartet, the emotional landscape of which can turn on a dime.
To be sure, this serves an especially useful function in monothematic move-
ments, which cannot rely on the alternation of themes (and the development
of a variety of material) to keep the ear intrigued. Perhaps monothematic is
too strong a word here, since Bartók does introduce subsidiary themes. But
they are very much subsidiary to the principal themes. The rugged first move-
ment, for example, never strays far from the principal theme, a brief gesture
consisting of a group of chromatic notes clustered tightly within the space of
a minor third.
When all is said and done, however, the most memorable aspect of the
Fourth Quartet is surely the sheer novelty of its sound. No previous quartet—
certainly none that has claimed a place in the standard repertoire—had made
such sustained use of unusual sonic effects available to a string quartet. This
particularly characterizes the second half of the piece. In the Non troppo lento
movement the cello’s espressivo melody is supported by a chordal accompani-
ment by the other strings; but Bartók meticulously indicates at what point
those chords are to be played with vibrato or without vibrato, yielding a
timbre that is respectively more ascetic or more lush. Eventually the melody
is handed off to the avian chirping of the first violin, and then to the viola.
Against the viola’s husky-toned rhapsodizing the other instruments play shiv-
ering tremolo chords sul ponticello—bowing their strings near the bridge of
the instrument to yield a wispy, nasal sound. And yet, each of these sul pon-
ticello chords is preceded by a quick, accented iteration of the same note, but
played with normal bowing, not so near the bridge, yielding a momentarily
fuller tone. The first violin and the cello, playing in counterpoint, lead the
movement to its tranquil ending; but here, too, the sound is specific, with
the violin playing in full voice (if softly) as the cello finally installs a mute to
match the hushed tones of the other instruments. The fourth movement is
an exercise in pizzicato. The players pluck their instruments’ strings through-
out, and sometimes they are instructed to attack so violently that the string
rebounds against the fingerboard, creating a banjo-like twang. After this the
huge chords that open the fifth movement sound all the more unbridled.
Through the originality of its very sound this often dense quartet trans-
ports us far from the Classical idea of the genteel quartettish conversation.
Each of Bartók’s quartets represents a significant step beyond those that pre-
ceded it, but even in this lineup the Fourth appears instantly to be an unusu-
ally “breakthrough” accomplishment, a decisive advance even beyond the
brilliance of the quartet that had won its composer an award from the Musi-
cal Fund Society of Philadelphia the year before. In a letter to his fellow Hun-
garian Frigyes (Fritz) Reiner, Bartók reported: “I have written another string
quartet, a much longer one this time; there are 5 movements (would there by
any chance be another competition somewhere?!!).”
Allegro
Adagio molto
Scherzo. Alla bulgarese (Vivace)
Andante, Finale
Allegro vivace
Work composed: August 6 to September 6, 1934, in Budapest

Work dedicated: To Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge
Work premiered: April 8, 1935, by the Kolisch Quartet at the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
Béla Bartók 25
In Bartók’s Fifth String Quartet we again encounter an arch form. Much as in

the Fourth Quartet, the first and fifth movements mirror each other in their
general impression, as do the second and fourth, leaving the third to stand as
the fulcrum in the middle. In this work Bartók finds a balance between the
harsh outbursts and unremitting intensity that can prove downright terrifying
in some of his works (in much of the Fourth Quartet, for example) and the
melodic lyricism and glittering details that prove captivating in other scores.
This balance between disparate Bartókian tendencies doubtless contributes
to the fact that the Fifth is the most widely loved and most played of his
quartets. Although it predates Bartók’s American years—all of the quartets
do—its impetus came from the United States as it was commissioned by the
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, was dedicated to that great Ameri-
can patron of chamber music, and was premiered by the Kolisch Quartet on
April 8, 1935, in Washington, D.C., at the Library of Congress, the venue
most associated with Mrs. Coolidge’s commissions.
Bartók composed this work in a mere month, from August 6 to Septem-
ber 6, 1934—an astonishing achievement, but one that was not atypical of
the concentrated bursts of creativity that he occasionally experienced dur-
ing his years of maturity as a composer. It was the only really original work
he completed that entire year, which otherwise was given over to preparing
orchestral transcriptions of folk-based arrangements he had previously made
for piano or voice.
Where the Fifth Quartet has certifiable themes they are poured out gen-
erously, a contrast to the tersely telegraphed motivic statements of his most
recently preceding quartets. Nonetheless, the opening music consists of vehe-
mently hammered notes that set into motion a vibrantly energized move-
ment that is itself a sort of palindrome: when its three principal themes return
in the movement’s recapitulation they appear in reverse order from how they
were presented in the exposition, and two of them carry the “mirror image”
idea further by becoming inverted in the recapitulation. In the second move-
ment (Adagio molto) we encounter Bartók in his irresistible “night music”
mode, providing a gentle tone poem full of bird calls and insect chirps (rather
than developed melodies), not to mention wisps of folk-song phrases wafting
in from a distance. In the Fourth Quartet the slow movement stood as the
central keystone. In the Fifth the fulcrum is instead a scherzo-with-trio (itself
a symmetrical structure), and its complex rhythmic patterns, as well as its
modal melody, derive from Bulgarian folk style. (Pianists find similar metric
patterns in the dances in Bulgarian rhythms in Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, and we
will encounter it shortly in his Contrasts.) In the trio of this middle move-
ment—the quartet’s exact midpoint—the viola plays an unassuming melody
that would seem to be a folk song, or an excellent imitation of one. Having
rounded the central point of the arch we return to another slow movement:
more “night music,” but the evening has progressed and the atmosphere has
grown altogether darker. The quartet concludes with a fascinating finale, its
vivacity reflecting that of the first movement, that runs through an array of
sections that include a bizarre fugue and (at the evocative marking Allegretto,
con indifferenza) an amusing depiction of an organ-grinder whose instrument
is none too well tuned, the utterly trivial tune being (to one’s surprise) a
variant, simplified to the point of banality, of the main theme of the whole
movement.
As in the Fourth Quartet, the arch form lends a strong sense of struc-
tural coherence, which is reinforced by the subtle dovetailing of more surface
details. For Bartók, knitting a piece together seems to be to a considerable
extent an act of intuition. The composer Sándor Veress, who had studied
piano with Bartók, recounted an incident that occurred in 1936. Following
a performance of the Fifth String Quartet in Budapest, a commentary was
published by the Hungarian musician Sándor Jemnitz. Recalled Veress: “Jem-
nitz sent his analysis to Bartók for approval and later, when he visited him
to discuss his writing, Bartók revealed that he was surprised by reading about
motivic, formal and harmonic connections Jemnitz discovered in the Quartet
and of which he was quite unaware.”
Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (BB 115; Sz.110)
Assai lento—Allegro molto

Lento, ma non troppo
Allegro non troppo
Work composed: Summer 1937

Work premiered: January 16, 1938, in Basel, Switzerland, by the composer
and his wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók (pianists), with Fritz Schiesser and Philipp
Rühlig (percussionists)
Instrumentation: Two pianos plus an array of percussion instruments played
by two musicians: three timpani, xylophone, side drum with snares, side drum
without snares, suspended cymbal, pair of cymbals, bass drum, triangle, and
tam-tam
The billionaire philanthropist Paul Sacher married into a pharmaceutical

fortune (his father-in-law had founded the Hoffmann-La Roche company),
and he used his newfound resources constructively. In 1926 the twenty-
year-old Sacher formed the Basel Chamber Orchestra and set about
Béla Bartók 27
commissioning works from leading composers, which he would often conduct

at their premieres. As a result, important scores by Richard Strauss, Hin-
demith, Stravinsky, Honegger, Tippett, and many other figures received their
first performances in Basel. More than 200 works by major twentieth-century
composers owe their existence to Paul Sacher and his foundation, which
inhabits opulent facilities in Basel, houses the archives of such notables as
Stravinsky, Webern, Frank Martin, and Bruno Maderna.
Bartók exercised the arts of victimhood and paranoia lavishly, but at
least he seems to have had no reason to complain about this benefactor.
Sacher not only commissioned both Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion,
and Celesta (1936, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Basel Cham-
ber Orchestra) and his Divertimento for String Orchestra (1939) but also
arranged for another party—the Swiss Section of the ISCM (International
Society of Contemporary Music)—to commission his Sonata for Two Pianos
and Percussion (1937) and then anted up the fee for that piece himself. The
Basel Section of the ISCM was set to celebrate its tenth anniversary in Janu-
ary 1938, and Sacher felt that Bartók would be the perfect candidate to write
a chamber piece to mark the occasion.
In the spring of 1937 Sacher approached the composer with the ISCM
commission, and Bartók responded with a measure of anxiety about the short
deadline and with a flurry of thoughts about the specific forces he might use.
“What kind of chamber music should it be?” he asked in a letter to Sacher on
May 24. “Could it be, for example, a quartet for two pianos and two groups
of percussion? Or a piano trio? Would you perhaps consider a piece for voice
and piano to be chamber music, or not?”
Sacher liked the first possibility, although for another month Bartók
kept bringing up the idea of a piano trio or a voice-and-piano piece as
more easily realizable within the time limit. The fact is that Bartók seems
to have been contemplating for some time a piece for two pianists and two
percussionists—one does not suggest a commission for such an unusual
instrumentation by simply pulling it out of the blue—and as the weeks
passed he, too, began to focus his thoughts on that grouping. Once he set
about the composition he proceeded quickly, and by September 2 he was
able to write to Sacher, “I am pleased to inform you that I have almost
succeeded in completing the planned work—my choice fell on a quartet
for two pianos and percussion; it may be counted on. It consists of three
movements; the first and second movements are finished, and half of the
third is ready, too.”
Bartók, Ditta Pásztory (his wife and a pianist, like her husband), and two
Swiss percussionists played the premiere on the anniversary concert, and the
work scored so great a success that subsequent performances were quickly
arranged for London, Brussels, Luxembourg, and Budapest. In 1940, Bartók’s
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the

free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this
work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase
“Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of
the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or
online at www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand,
agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual
property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to
abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using
and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for
obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™
electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms
of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only

be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by
people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.
There are a few things that you can do with most Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the
full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There
are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™
electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and
help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the
collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright
law in the United States and you are located in the United
States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying,
distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works
based on the work as long as all references to Project
Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will
support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free
access to electronic works by freely sharing Project
Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this
agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name
associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms
of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with
its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it
without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside
the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to
the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying,
displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works
based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The
Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright
status of any work in any country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project

Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must
appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project
Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed,
viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United

States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it
away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg
License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United
States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to
anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges.
If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of
paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use
of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth
in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and
distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through
1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder.
Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™
License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright
holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project

Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files
containing a part of this work or any other work associated with
Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute
this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1
with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the
Project Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if
you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project
Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or
other format used in the official version posted on the official
Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at
no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a
means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project
Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™
works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or

providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive
from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using
the method you already use to calculate your applicable
taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate
royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be
paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as
such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4,
“Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt
that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project
Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to
return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a
physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access
to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full

refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy,
if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported
to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project

Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different
terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain
permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3
below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on,
transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright
law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite
these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the
medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,”
such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt
data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other
medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES -

Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in
paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic
work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for
damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU
AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE,
STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH
OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH
1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER
THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR
ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF
THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If

you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you
paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you
received the work from. If you received the work on a physical
medium, you must return the medium with your written
explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the
defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu
of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or
entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.
If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund
in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set

forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’,
WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR
ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this
agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this
agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the
maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable
state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of
this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the

Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the
Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any
volunteers associated with the production, promotion and
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless
from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that
arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project
Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or
deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect
you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of

Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new
computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of
volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project
Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™
collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In
2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was
created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project
Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your
efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the
Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-
profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the
laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by
the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal
tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax
deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and
your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500

West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact
links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation’s website and official page at
www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to

the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission
of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works
that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form
accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated
equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly
important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws

regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of
the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform
and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many
fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not
solicit donations in locations where we have not received written
confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or
determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit
www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states

where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know
of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from
donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot

make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations
received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp
our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current

donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a
number of other ways including checks, online payments and
credit card donations. To donate, please visit:
www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could
be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose
network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several

printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by
copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus,
we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any
particular paper edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear
about new eBooks.

Get Chamber Music A Listener s Guide 1st Edition James Keller free all chapters

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Get Chamber Music A Listener s Guide 1st Edition James Keller free all chapters

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Get Chamber Music A Listener s Guide 1st Edition James Keller free all chapters

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Download the full version of the ebook at ebookfinal.

Chamber Music A Listener s Guide 1st Edition James

Download more ebook instantly today at https://ebookfinal.com

Chamber Music A Research and Information Guide Routledge

The NPR curious listener s guide to opera 1st Perigee ed

Metric manipulations in Haydn and Mozart chamber music for

America s Three Regimes A New Political History 1st

A Performer s Guide to Seventeenth Century Music Second

A Student s Guide to Fourier Transforms 2nd Edition J. F.

Performer s Guide to Music of the Romantic Period 1st

Strindberg and the Five Senses Studies in Strindberg s

Oxford New York

Copyright © 2011 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Printed in the United States of America

Whatever they aspire to convey is bound to be slight indeed if their reading

chamber music so endlessly interesting. Great names of the past dominate

on behalf of this book. Joanne Wang proved to be both unflappable as my

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH 5

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 35

String Quartet in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2,

BENJAMIN BRITTEN 130

ELLIOTT CARTER 136

AARON COPLAND 141

RUTH CRAWFORD (SEEGER) 146

GEORGE CRUMB 150

CLAUDE DEBUSSY 159

ERNST VON DOHNÁNYI 165

ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK 168

EDWARD ELGAR 184

GEORGE ENESCU 188

GABRIEL FAURÉ 191

CÉSAR FRANCK 198

MIKHAIL GLINKA 202

OSVALDO GOLIJOV 205

EDVARD GRIEG 209

FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN 213

String Quartet in G major, Op. 76, No. 1

FANNY MENDELSSOHN HENSEL 247

PAUL HINDEMITH 251

JACQUES IBERT 256

CHARLES IVES 259

LEOŠ JANÁČEK 263

ZOLTÁN KODÁLY 272

GYÖRGY LIGETI 276

BOHUSLAV MARTINŮ 283

FELIX MENDELSSOHN 290

OLIVIER MESSIAEN 308

WOLFGANG AMADÈ MOZART 313

CARL NIELSEN 361

FRANCIS POULENC 364

SERGEI PROKOFIEV 366

MAURICE RAVEL 369

STEVE REICH 377

SILVESTRE REVUELTAS 381

CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS 385

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG 388

FRANZ SCHUBERT 393

CLARA WIECK SCHUMANN 413