Carelessness? Classical "Orthodoxy"? Manufactured Coherence? -Some Thoughts on Dvorak's D Minor Quartet
Johannes Brahms may have accepted the dedication of Dvorak’s String Quartet in d minor, op. 34 (1877), but (in rather gentle manner for Brahms, when in a critical mood) wrote to Dvorak that when filling in the sharps and flats in his music he should take another look at the notes themselves, and noted (with implicit criticism) how quickly Dvorak composed.
Is this criticism fair?
Yes. Brahms is presumably not talking about typos, nor about egregiously wrong notes, but instead about the fact that Dvorak (and this discussion will be limited to the quartet) is willing to accept the plausible, the obvious, in place of the truly organic.
Paul Griffiths writes in his “The String Quartet-A History”:
“There were…features of Dvorak’s style that made the quartet an appropriate medium, notably his liking for presenting a melody first in one instrument then in another with a counter-melody added. But in writing quartets he must have been helped too by his long years of experience as a viola player, experience to which all his mature quartets bear witness in making the viola-not the cello as in Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann-the second soloist of the ensemble.”
Griffiths is literally correct about Dvorak’s relationship to the medium, but his comments betray too great a respect for facility and idiomatic style for my taste. But he is consistent. His criticism of Brahms’s quartets centers on the seeming textural inadequacy of the medium to realize Brahms’s (presumably orchestral) musical thought. I like Griffiths’s book, but I disagree somewhat with his assessment of the appositeness of the respective styles of Brahms and Dvorak for the quartet medium. I also think he terribly underestimates Schumann’s op. 41 quartets, for similar reasons, but that’s another story. In any case, Wienawski or Sarasate or even Vivaldi weren’t the greatest composers of violin music, although Liszt may have been the greatest composer of piano music, per se. Perhaps we should have the greatest respect for works that transcend the perceived physical limitations of their medium, like Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge, to stay with quartet literature.
Dvorak’s d minor quartet is a good, not a great work, precisely and exactly and assuredly because Brahms was right both in his general enthusiasm for Dvorak as well as in his gentle reproach. This quartet suffers in its outer movements from what I might call “manufactured coherence”. Case in point, the second subject of the first movement, whose first phrase is literally the second half of the first subject’s opening phrase, reharmonized in F Major. Now there are critics who would congratulate themselves on discovering this, and congratulate Dvorak on his “organicism”. I don’t buy it. It’s obvious, and therefore dull. Repetition is as overrated in musical form as consensus is in committee meetings. Another obvious and therefore dull bit of pseudo-organicism is the use of the triplet obligato that accompanies the main theme in its big structural repetition in the exposition as the decisive element in the coda. Plausible, certainly. Effective? Sure. Organic? Not really, because real development and transformation (which would be organic) doesn’t occur.
Another thing: it is well known that Dvorak loved Schubert and enjoys using Schubertian mediant chords, whether as modulatory levers or even as subsidary theme areas. So the development of the first movement begins in B Major. That’s alright, as far as it goes, it was about time to get out of the d minor/F Major orbit, but why B? Why not D-flat, for instance? Once again, plausible, reasonably effective, but not terribly organic. Consider by contrast Beethoven’s us of f-sharp minor in his Eighth Symphony, or F-Sharp Major in his Second. Or Schubert’s use of E-Flat Major in his String Quintet. And these are works Dvorak knew, presumably, and there are many other examples in any case. One rhythmic aspect in which Dvorak really missed the boat in this opening movement is failing to grasp that the turn subject in eighth notes in the principal themes (a-b-flat-a) lends itself superbly to hemiola. Turn the turn from straight eighth notes into a triplet, phrase in two beats within the 3/4 meter, and I think you’ve really got something, something akin to what Brahms achieves in the first movement of his rhytmically magisterial Second Symphony. Another annoying thing about Dvorak’s movement (which it would be patently unfair to leave at Dvorak’s doorstep alone, because so many Romantics made the same mistake) is that he is apparently trying to “play by the book”; to impress Brahms, as Griffiths suggests, by composing an “orthodox” Classical sonata form. Since when are Haydn and Beethoven othodox! The idea that sonata form can be, or was, codified into a recipe is a big problem for some movements in Dvorak, as well as Schumann and even, occasionally, the later works of Mendelssohn.
The second and third movements are much, much better. The second movement, a charming polka, is exactly the right replacement for Classical minuet or scherzo in the context of Dvorak’s style, and the slow movement (a big binary form with coda) is a marvelous study in textural variation, from the multiple stopping with mutes on, through the almost a la Hongroise repetition that even anticipates slightly the magnificent central episode of the slow movement in Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet, to the wonderfully spacious octave oscillations that inform the coda.
The finale, alas, is again merely adequate. Apparently modelled on Schubert’s masterpiece, “Gretchen am Spinnrade”, this movement falls into a Schumann like rhythmic rut rather than achieving the halluncinatory intensity of Schubert’s terrifying tarantellas of death, in his d minor and G major quartets as well as in the c minor piano sonata.
“Natural” affinity for a medium is a gift that cuts both ways.
Do Composers Compose Out of a Need for "Personal Expression"? The Strange Case of Dr. Mendelssohn and Mr. Schumann
Mendelssohn, Schuman
Obviously, any artist is de facto “expressing himself personally”. But to reduce the purpose of an artist to a need for self expression is so simple minded that the phrase “personal expression” becomes meaningless. It puts me in mind of amateur poets (a class with whom I am intensely sympathetic, by the way) who take one class, write a few incoherent and narcissistic poems, and proudly proclaim that they have a need for “self expression”. Meaningless, meaningless, meaningless. This is for amateurs, not professionals.
Which brings me to Mendelssohn’s String Quartet, op. 80, in f minor (Beethoven’s most hopeless key; vide the “Appassionata” sonata). If those who think Mendelssohn is wimpy were to listen to this piece, they’d “have another think coming,” as the expression has it. Those who say that Mendelssohn is wimpy either don’t know Mendelssohn, are mean spirited, or have a deficiency in their aesthetics. But they are not even potentially correct. No way. In the best scenario, some music lovers who have innocently labored under this regrettable delusion, promulgated by irresponsible critics and even musicians, some of whom are indeed motivated by antisemitism, like Wagner, for instance, may cure themselves in a most pleasurable and fulfilling manner by listening to a broad spectrum of his works.
Mendelssohn composed this agonizing and despairing quartet in 1847, supposedly as a response to the tragedy of his sister Fanny’s (1805-47) death. Felix had been very close to his sister, and suffered deeply when she died. The quartet is full of “deep suffering” as well. Must be a connection, right? I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it, even if it could be shown that Mendelssohn consciously thought he was expressing his grief by the quartet’s composition. Composition doesn’t work that way. The professional obligation to create meaningful work isn’t at the beck and call of personal circumstances.
There are other works that fall into this category: Mozart’s a minor piano sonata (a response to the death of his mother); Brahms’s Requiem (death of his mother plus the death of Robert Schumann); Stravinsky’s Symphonie en Ut (wife and daughter). In all fairness, I should point out that Stravinsky commented that it was the composition of the work that “kept him going”, and that the work has a reasonably sunny disposition.
The cases of Berg’s Violin Concerto and Schoenberg’s String Trio are completely different. These are programmatic pieces that specifically introduce personally definable elements as part of their structure and meaning. Deaths and love affairs, for Berg, a near fatal heart attack, for Schoenberg. Incidentally, personal allusions represented in musically concrete ways was a pervasive stylistic feature of Berg’s music.
Most interesting is the case of Robert Schumann, the professional who pretended to be an amateur. He didn’t fool me! His case is similar to Berg’s. Papillons, Carneval, Frauenliebe und Leben, etc. are “programmatic pieces that specifically introduce personally definable elements as part of their structure and meaning”. Schumann’s commitment to his craft is as discernably professional as any other great composer. That doesn’t mean he was as technically gifted as Mendelssohn; of course he wasn’t. Genius and technique are not the same thing. I look forward to discussing the “cult of the amateur” in connection with Schumann in my upcoming class.
I’ll give the last word to Stravinsky, but I have to paraphrase, I don’t feel like pawing through Robert Craft’s zillion books about Stravinsky to find the exact passage. When Stravinsky was asked when and where he got his musical inspirations, he responded: “At my desk, when I’m trying to compose.” The words of a professional.
What's So Wrong with Mendelssohn's op.44?
Mendelssohn, Schumann
Purely as an aside, I just noticed on television that the American Express ad touting their business credit card, a spot that features the “small business owner next door” has replaced its former background music, the exhilarating scherzo from Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” symphony, with some inane techno-pop. What does it mean? Nothing. But you can no longer get your Mendelssohn fix by sitting in front of the idiot box!
In Paul Griffith’s generally admirable book, The String Quartet, a History, he makes a revealing point. He discusses Mendelssohn’s op. 44 quartets in a rather superficial way (but of course the book is a survey), essentially criticizing the works as a step backward following the great a minor quartet, op. 13, which he acknowleges as the “…one masterpiece that slipped through…”, referring to the not-so-great aesthetic milieu for the quartet between Beethoven and Brahms. That’s alright, but I’d prefer a discussion about op. 44’s considerable intrinsic musical merits. Critics and historians seem to be obliged to force musical history into a progressive narrative. I’m frequently guilty of this, myself. But by any reasonable standard, op. 44 is a great musical achievement; and every piece can’t be the Ninth Symphony.
Great repertories, such as the mature work of Mendelssohn, the mature work of Hindemith, the mature work of Richard Strauss, almost anything by Rachmaninov, are slighted again and again by the imposition of this progressive narrative on musical history. What’s more old fashioned now, I ask you, Pierrot Lunaire or the Rachmaninov Etudes Tableaux? And I say this as a committed supporter of the aspirations of the so-called “avant garde”; at least where these aspirations are coupled with craftsmanship and sincerity, and as opposed to those composers who attempt facilely to gain a public by making their scores relevant, or as opposed especially to those composers who cynically employ the resources of the past without having been trained in the techniques of the past.
But the point that got me was Griffith’s speculation that Robert Schumann refrained from making a public criticism of Mendessohn’s op. 44 “perhaps out of tact”. What? Backward looking or not, op. 44 is a significant technical achievement, well beyond Schumann’s technique, which is essentially proven in Schumann’s op. 41 cycle, which sports some charming and indeed expressive moments, but which feels like a work Schumann concocted to establish his classically formal bona fides. And Griffith makes the great point that Schumann’s sonata forms in op. 41 are more “textbook” than anything found in the Classical masters, whose forms are much more adapted to the musical materials they are using.
And Schumann’s criticisms in his Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik are generally more enthusiastic than tactful. By the way, I’m not saying that Schumann may not ultimately be a greater composer than Mendelssohn; works like Dichterliebe and the Phantasie, op. 17 strike a deeper chord, perhaps than Mendelssohn is able to do. But when it comes to putting the dots and hooks of a score together in a professional way, Mendelssohn wins by, to borrow a term from pugilism, a TKO. Schumann himself admitted this somewhere, saying he could study with Mendelssohn for years, and still have more to learn.
You Don't Have to Start at the Beginning: Mendelssohn and Beethoven
Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13, written at the age of 18, and his String Quartet in E-flat, Op. 12, written at the age of 20, are at once the most knowlegeable glosses on Beethoven in existence and yet at the same time deeply original works. Beethoven’s late style was not exactly terra incognita for the early romantics, but middle period works, especially the Fifth Symphony, exerted much more influence, generally. Mendelssohn is the exception. As he comments himself, “You don’t have to start at the beginning…”. Early Mendelssohn bends back only a year or two to embrace late Beethoven. These quartets are from 1827 and 1829, and therefore can properly be regarded as a sort of continuation of late Beethoven rather than works with a retrospective orientation. Consider a wildly different repertory that looks back to late Beethoven, the Rochberg quartets, especially the “Beethoven” movement in the Third, and you will understand the difference between the creator and the curator.
Mendelssohn was amused, and possibly flattered, when an auditeur of his a-minor quartet mistook the piece as having been written by Beethoven. Mendelssohn took all sorts of Beethoven works as models for these quartets: The “Harp” Quartet, the Quartet Serioso, the a-minor quartet, Op. 132, the “Tempest” piano sonata, the “Les Adieu” piano sonata, the F-Major quartet, op. 135, especially the “Muss es sein” idea, which Mendelssohn balances with his own “Ist es wahr” quotation from his own song, “Frage” which is actually printed in its entirety in my score. But Mendelssohn doesn’t quote! He absorbs and sublimates. Those who know and love the late Beethoven quartets can only marvel at the profundity and originality of Mendelssohn’s ability in extending this most personal of styles.
Mendelssohn’s counterpoint is breath-taking. Effortlessly elegant, flexible, natural and eloquent, contrapuntal textures have rarely been such a joy, as opposed to a sort of chore to listen to.
Mendelssohn doesn’t need to take his scherzi from Beethoven, because Mendelssohn was himself a very great scherzo writer. Both Scherzo movements in these quartets are actually archaic sounding intermezzi with scherzo music taking the middle panel of A-B-A structures. These intermezzi are the most obvious delights in these great works. I think they deeply influenced Brahms, as well, who has several archaic sounding movements with scherzando central panels.
And Mendelssohn is tonally progressive. How innovative the E-flat quartet is! movements in E-flat, g minor, B-flat, and c-minor, with a coda derived from the E-flat end of the first movement. This is not “progressive” tonality in the sense we associate with Carl Nielsen, because the different tonalities do not directly engage each other, but it sort of points in the same direction.
Mendelssohn is always a master of the string quartet texture. These vibrant works jump off the page. And melodies? Take a look at the Mozartian elegance of both slow movements. Sometimes one hears the absurd defamation that Mendelssohn is superficial. If a composer has the right to be judged by his best work (definitely not the “Songs Without Words”!) Mendelssohn is deep. He’s just so very, very, competent that his works never betray anything like the struggle of genesis. M had it all, from a very young age. A prodigy to rival Mozart, but who wrote true repertory works at an age younger than Mozart. These quartets are winners.
Definitely not a winner, however, is Mendelssohn’s symphony, “Lobegesang”; It’s actually a 23 minute symphony yoked with a 40 minute cantata, and is a pathetic and futile attempt to be a work in the manner of Beethoven’s Ninth. I followed the score with amazement as I heard the excellent recording by Kurt Masur with the splendid Leipzig Gewandhaus. Amazement, because, as a thoroughly trained musician, someone who is really comfortable with reading scores accurately, and hopefully insightfully, I could find nothing wrong, and yet the work was excruciating, interminable! All the competency was there; the great, light on its feet orchestration, the effortless counterpoint, the relative pithiness of individual sections, the mastery of choral writing, yet the work was almost unlistenable. Maybe it’s my fault, that I wasn’t in the mood. Maybe it’s the flat out awfulness of the text, with lines such as “Now all praise the Lord, ye who have breath…” I don’t know.
The first symphony, in c minor, written when M was 15, is a delight. It combines a sort of “sturm und drang” as practiced by Mozart in his g minor symphonies with a cheerful appropriation of Beethoven’s Fifth. No where near the quality of the quartets, this is nevertheless a very charming and listenable work.
Mendelssohn: A Life in Music
by R. Larry Todd
Composers' "Personal" Keys
In the excellent dvd set, “Haydn, The String Quartets”, the first violinist of the Lindsays (string quartet) comments that f-minor was Haydn’s “personal” key; this in reference to the Quartet op. 20, Nr. 5. He goes on to suggest that c-minor and g-minor were Beethoven’s and Mozart’s “personal” keys, respectively.
He’s right. But a “personal” key is by no means the most ubiquitous key in a composer’s output; if it were, just about all classical composers would have personal keys of C or D major. The key word is indeed “personal”…in Haydn’s case, consider the piano variations in f-minor and the symphony “La Passione” in addition to the quartet. In Mozart’s case, the 40th symphony, g-minor quintet and Papageno’s suicide music. In Beethoven, you can start with the 5th symphony and go from there.
More interesting is the pschological mood these keys denote, not just their technical character. For Haydn, you might say “passion”, for Mozart “despair”, and for Beethoven, “struggle”.
I suggest other personal keys: for Chopin, B-major, (and, by the way, Chopin insisted that B major was the easiset and most natural scale on the piano); for Liszt, F#-major, for Tchaikovsky, b-minor, for Janacek, D flat-major. For starters. You will notice that all of these keys are relatively exceptional keys compared to the general ubiquity of keys in the repertory. For those who need persuading about the above designations, consider the following:
Chopin: 3rd sonata, numerous nocturnes, waltzes, and mazurkas, as well as sthe still heart of such pieces as the Fantasy and Poloniase-Fantasy.
Lizst: The “Lucifer” music in the “Dante Sonata”; the “Mephistopheles” music in the b-minor sonata, the Mephisto waltz, etc.
Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake, “Manfred” symphony, and especially the 6th symphony.
Janacek: Sinfonietta and the great epiphany from The Cunning Little Vixen.
But one can make their own list. Mahler doesn’t have a personal key, possibly because all of his music is so personal, so egregiously autobiographical.
In assigning “personal” keys, one should keep in mind that it is a sort of parlor game, and different assignments and disputations are inevitable and welcome; neither is choice of key the most important element even in those works for which a strong identification is present. But it can guide us to certain discoveries, and provide a shorthand for describing the aesthetic predispositions of certain composers. Cross comparison is interesting as well. I suspect most experienced musicians would regard b-minor as moody, even apart from Tchaikovsky…that F#-major is ecstatic, or Promethean…by the way let’s absolutely put Scriabin in the F#-major camp, he belongs with Liszt. It seems like every other piece by Scriabin has the totemic 6 sharps.
A final comment: it is no coincidence that for the classical masters, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, their characteristic keys are minor keys. In the Classical era, minor keys were already exceptional, and therefore potentially “personal”.