String Quartet No 2 in E flat Ernest John Moeran (1894-1951)
1. Allegro moderato ma ben animato; 2. Lento – andante - vivace – allegretto – andante - allegro vivace - presto.
EJ Moeran, as he is generally known (‘Jack’ to his friends), had family connections with both Norfolk and Ireland, and though his music sounds predominantly English in character, the Irish strain comes through at several points in a number of works.
The early influences on his music are varied: he studied at the Royal College of Music with Stanford for a year before the First World War and with John Ireland for three years after it. He collected folk songs in both East Anglia and County Kerry, and his musical language also reflects the early influence of Ireland and Delius. Friendship with Peter Warlock, while destabilising on a personal level, prompted an interest in sixteenth-century music.
Moeran’s undated autograph of the E flat String Quartet was discovered after his death by his widow, the cellist Peers Coetmore, and the work was published in 1956. The consensus seems to be that it dates from the mid-1920s, though Geoffrey Self, in his 1986 study of Moeran’s music, argues for a possible later date, perhaps the mid-1940s, for at least the second of the two movements.
The first movement gives an immediate impression of guileless innocence, with its simple opening theme. In fact, there’s a lot of sophisticated musical thought going on beneath the surface, and the harmonies take a less predictable turn in the middle of the movement.
After a short slow introduction, the second movement is a set of variations that is also a combination of slow movement, scherzo and finale. The theme is Moeran’s own, but it could easily be mistaken for a genuine English folk song. After a series of contrasting episodes, it becomes more like an Irish reel in the quick final section.
String Quartet No 2, ‘Company’ Philip Glass (born 1937)
Besides three student works, which he withdrew, Glass has to date composed five string quartets. The first was written in 1966, soon after he finished his studies with the great teacher Nadia Boulanger in Paris; the other four were all composed between 1983 and 1991.
No 2 takes its title from a short novel by Samuel Beckett, which the actor Frederick Neuman adapted for performance as a stage monologue. With Beckett’s agreement he commissioned a score from Glass, and Beckett indicated four points in the text where music would be particularly effective. Glass later commented: “Not surprisingly these four short movements have turned out to be a thematically cohesive work which now, as my String Quartet No 2, has taken on a life of its own.”
The first and third movements are moderately-paced; the second and fourth are more incisively rhythmic, though the fourth ends inconclusively.
String Quartet in F minor, Op 80 Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
1. Allegro assai - presto; 2. Allegro assai; 3. Adagio; 4. Finale. Allegro molto.
In May 1847, Mendelssohn returned to Germany from his last visit to England. Passing through Frankfurt on his way home he received the shattering news of his beloved sister Fanny’s sudden death. The shock, added to his own precarious state of health, left him for a while completely unable to compose. A holiday in Switzerland partly restored his well-being and he set to work on what was to be his last major composition, the F minor String Quartet. The piece is a great welling-up of all the turbulent, stormy emotions which occasionally show through the urbane exterior of his music. This is perhaps the least familiar side of his musical character. There are plenty of other examples in his work (the aria “Is not His Word like a fire?” from Elijah, for one), but none of them quite prepares us for the sustained, bitter intensity of this quartet.
We know where we are, emotionally, from the very first bar. The agitated tremolandos which propel the opening theme so forcefully are actually quite sparingly used but they set the tone for the whole movement. In such a context the lyrical relaxation afforded by the second main theme seems so fleeting as to be illusory. In the end the emotional pressure builds up to such an extent that an increase of speed to presto in the coda is needed to contain it.
The turbulence spills over into the scherzo. Quite unlike Mendelssohn’s usual light, airy way with scherzo movements, this is positively savage in its relentless, syncopated energy. With the adagio comes a degree of relief, but only to begin with. The main theme is in Mendelssohn’s typically suave melodic vein, but off-beat accompanying chords keep nudging it forward towards a tense, dissonant climax.
The agitation of the first two movements breaks out with renewed force in the finale. The main theme, like that of the second movement, is propelled by its syncopated rhythm. At the recapitulation – the climactic point when the movement’s opening music returns - triplet figures begin to take over the texture, like the tarantella rhythm that Mendelssohn had used so often before, but to very different effect; here it suggests grim energy rather than high spirits. The final impression is of tragedy, not so much overcome, as met head-on with stoic determination.
© Mike Wheeler 2011