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23.2.04

Brodsky Quartet at the Library of Congress, cont. — by Charles T. Downey
Contributed by Charles T. Downey at 12:02 AM | Link to this article
The audience reacted with enthusiastic applause to this work, which violist Paul Cassidy acknowledged by speaking during the pause before the second piece. As it turns out, this is the first time that the Brodsky Quartet has been to Washington, and they have spent the past few days seeing the sights and appreciating the city. He noted that many great composers were violists (Mozart, Haydn, Schubert), to the chagrin of his fellow players, but then he connected that statement to the piece in question with a personal anecdote. He recounted that in 1843, in Milan, Francesco Guissani had made a viola, which was purchased from its first owner by English violist and composer Frank Bridge, who was Britten's teacher and a frequent recipient of Mrs. Coolidge's commissions. As Mr. Cassidy recounted, Bridge was at the end of his career and feared that he might not see his most famous student again, so he managed to board Britten's ship to the United States before it departed and left the viola on his bed. (Britten, like Bridge, played the viola. See Ross Charnock's article Benjamin Britten, altiste [Benjamin Britten, violist], in the Bulletin des Amis de L'Alto France in 2001.) Later, Peter Pears loaned the violin to Mr. Cassidy for him to play, and that was the viola that Mr. Cassidy played here on Friday night. (The Brodsky Quartet has also recently recorded the other two Britten string quartets, in May 2003.)

The second piece on the program was Franz Schubert's String Quartet in A Minor, D. 804, called the "Rosamunde." The first movement (Allegro ma non troppo) has a melancholy main theme, accompanied in the second violin by what Tomás Hernández identified in the program notes as a motive that "recalls Gretchen am Sprinnrade (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel) from Goethe's Faust, his breakthrough song dating from 1814." (That song is D. 118, and here is the text in German and English.) I don't know how Schubert was so often able to create accompanying patterns that evoke poetic images so well: think of the sounds of the mill in the opening song (Das Wandern [Wandering]) of his song cycle Die schöne Müllerin, D. 795 (in English, The Fair Miller-Maid), for example. Gretchen's motive really does sound like a spinning wheel, and it does indeed appear in this quartet.

Typical for Schubert, this movement's grandeur went on and on, seeming to repeat endlessly. The quartet's nickname comes from the second movement (Andante), whose main theme comes from the composer's incidental music for a play that failed in the previous year, Helmina von Chézy's Rosamunde, Furstin von Cypern. The third movement (Menuetto: Allegretto) has a strange introduction, quite unminuetlike in my opinion. This opening is derived, I am told, from Schubert's song Die Götter Griechenlands (The gods of Greece), D. 677 (poem by Friedrich Schiller), to the words "Fair world, where art thou?" (here is the song's text, in German and English). The movement then becomes more dancelike, especially in the trio. The fourth movement (Allegro moderato) has a chipper theme, as Schubert optimistically shifts the quartet's tonality to A major for his conclusion. The Brodsky Quartet showed off some of its most technically demanding fast playing here.

For the concert's final piece, the Brodsky Quartet returned to its 2002 CD to play Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's String Quartet no. 1 in D Major, op. 11. This piece left me somewhat cold, especially the first and last movements which seem to have been dashed off and consist of little more than flashy pyrotechnics. (Indeed, according to Tchaikovsky specialists, the composer produced this quartet in a short amount of time for a special concert he was asked to give.) These virtuosic sections were played admirably by the Brodsky Quartet: the prestissimo coda of the fourth movement rondo, in particular, was blindingly fast. The third movement (Allegro non tanto e con fuoco) is a folksy scherzo and trio that has a pleasing, lilting triple-meter dance feel to it. However, the jewel of this quartet, and really the only reason to play or listen to it is the second movement (Andante cantabile). As Tomás Hernández tells the story in the program notes:

The Quartet made its successful debut at the concert that took place on March 16, 1871. What particularly impressed the audience was the second movement Andante cantabile based on a folk song, "Sidel Vanya," that Tchaikovsky had heard being sung by a peasant outside his window. In December 1876 the Quartet was performed at a concert for the author Leo Tolstoy, in Moscow on a rare visit from his plantation. In his diary the composer recalls: "Perhaps never in my life . . . has my composer's pride been so flattered and moved, as when L. Tolstoy, sitting beside me and listening to the Andante of my first quartet, burst into tears."

As you might expect, anything that made Tolstoy cry is worth ten minutes of your time. The historical importance of folk song in Russian music, indeed in music of most of eastern Europe, is an interesting subject, and this instance of it certainly seemed to move the Russian writer. The song is apparently Ukrainian in origin, and Tchaikovsky likely heard it during a visit to his sister who lived in the country. From what I've been able to find about this song, its text is about a peasant, Vanya, sitting up late at night on his sofa and smoking and drinking, drowning his sorrow and dreaming of a better life. The melody is modal and a little strange, which requires Tchaikovsky to put together some unusual harmonies to accompany it. He also uses a more refined melody of his own composition to contrast with the folk song. This movement was beautifully played, perhaps not as sentimentally as possibly, maybe even with a little distance, but beautifully. There is a reason that this piece has been arranged for orchestra and many other instrumental combinations. Tchaikovsky outdid himself.

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