Program Notes
200 Years
Mozart String Quartet #19 (Dissonance)
In 1785, Mozart published a set of string quartets that he dedicated to Haydn. So we’ll start there - with Haydn - for just a minute. Then we’ll get back to Mozart.
Joseph Haydn revolutionized string quartet writing. We could say he invented it, except he didn’t in all the ways - string quartets (meaning music written for 4 stringed instruments - usually, but not always, 2 violins, viola and cello) existed before Haydn, but he changed the form in some really important ways. Primarily he made all the voices (almost) equally important instead of always having one melody voice and everyone else playing harmonic lines. Plus, he wrote 68 quartets in his lifetime and his advocacy for the form was really influential.
Because of all this, Haydn was nicknamed “the father of the string quartet”. But he also tended to be considered the father of everything. He was frequently referred to as “Papa Haydn” despite not having kids of his own, because he mentored so many musicians. And he was a really nice guy. Mozart really leaned into father thing hard in his dedication of the Opus 10 quartets (more about this in a bit).
In 1783 the composer Ignaz Pleyel dedicated a set of quartets to Haydn, and they sold really well. Let’s call them hot cakes. After seeing Pleyel’s success, it’s possible that Mozart’s decision to dedicate his Opus 10 to Haydn was not based solely out of respect for his friend and mentor. But, as we have no evidence to the contrary, let’s just plant that seed and leave it there. ANYWAY, Mozart published his dedication page of the quartets (in Italian despite Mozart being from Salzburg and Haydn from Vienna - Italian was considered a more “cultured” language.) Here is what he wrote…
To my dear friend Haydn,
A father who had resolved to send his children out into the great world took it to be his duty to confide them to the protection and guidance of a very celebrated Man, especially when the latter by good fortune was at the same time his best Friend. Here they are then, O great Man and dearest Friend, these six children of mine. They are, it is true, the fruit of a long and laborious endeavor, yet the hope inspired in me by several Friends that it may be at least partly compensated encourages me, and I flatter myself that this offspring will serve to afford me solace one day. You, yourself, dearest friend, told me of your satisfaction with them during your last Visit to this Capital. It is this indulgence above all which urges me to commend them to you and encourages me to hope that they will not seem to you altogether unworthy of your favour. May it therefore please you to receive them kindly and to be their Father, Guide and Friend! From this moment I resign to you all my rights in them, begging you however to look indulgently upon the defects which the partiality of a Father's eye may have concealed from me, and in spite of them to continue in your generous Friendship for him who so greatly values it, in expectation of which I am, with all of my Heart, my dearest Friend, your most Sincere Friend,
W. A. Mozart
In the set of six quartets there is an outlier. The last published (but not last written) quartet - #19 - is nicknamed Disssonance. (Not a name Mozart gave it, of course). Anyway, Mozart went in a weird direction - for the time, at least - with this one. But just for the opening. The introduction to #19 is full of unusual harmonies. Some of these harmonies “clash” or don’t always sound good together for a moment (that’s where the name “Dissonance” comes from). They do always resolve into something lovely, but still… the nerve of that guy, right?
The reception for this quartet was as we would expect. Some people liked it. Some people thought it was awful. One guy (a musicologist and composer by the name of François-Joseph Fétis) tried to fix what he was sure were “mistakes”. The writing was fairly ground-breaking, and Mozart really only did it the one time. But it was a pearl-clutching incident. Despite the opening being really just a few minutes, people.
Anyway, fast forward to today and of course, people like this a work a lot now. If you do some research, you come across the phrase “used in movies” a lot, too. But can you find a list of actual movies that it’s in? Nope. And I think this is because when it is put into movies, it’s only used for the “weird bit”. And because the intro is so short, it doesn’t get credited, maybe. That’s our best guess. You can find some references to this quartet and specific movies, but whether those are trustworthy lists or not is questionable. We did put such a list up in one of the preconcert slides, but full disclosure, that list MAY be flawed. Just know that this quartet is used in movies. Somewhere. Hopefully that’s good enough, because that’s all you’re gonna get.
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Glass String Quartet #3 (Mishima)
This quartet is the only one on this program that was written for a specific film. In 1985, filmmaker and writer Paul Schrader released Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. The movie is about the life of Yukio Mishima, who was a Japanese writer (and actor and model) who had VERY strong feelings about Japanese traditionalism and nationalism. He tried to overthrow the Japanese government by organizing a coup that ultimately resulted in his suicide by seppuku. (We're not saying anything else - if you don’t know you’ll have to look it up. Or watch the movie.)
So Philip Glass, who is a minimalist composer who considers himself primarily to be a theatre composer, was asked and agreed to write the score. And it is fantastic. It uses a large ensemble for most of the film, but there are a number of flashback scenes (shot in black and white) that Glass scored for string quartet. He published these flashback movements as a stand-alone concert work - his String Quartet #3.
The general idea behind minimalist music is that the music changes very subtly over the length of the piece (or movement). By using patterns of notes that repeat and gradually shift rhythmically and/or harmonically, the music sort of ebbs from one place to another without ever changing direction in a major way. It’s rather hypnotic - a bit like watching a tank full of jellyfish blub around. Don’t tell Mr. Glass we said that, please.
For the sake of not erring on the side of OVERLY hypnotic, we have cut a few movements of the quartet for this performance. If you want to hear everything, you should watch the movie. Probably you should watch it either way - the score is good to the point of sometimes being distracting. We love that. But maybe it’s another thing not to mention to Mr. Glass if you meet him. Thank you.
Ravel String Quartet
In 1903, when Maurice Ravel was 28, he finished the only string quartet he would write. In a few ways, it was modeled after Debussy's string quartet of 1893. (Debussy also wrote only one). Both quartets initially got mixed reviews. Because they were examples of that new-fangled Impressionism, with all its innovative harmonic, structural and tonal ideas, people were either enamored, baffled, or displeased. (That story never gets old, right?) For Ravel, the list broke down this way…
The person he dedicated the work to - Gabriel Faure - didn’t like it. Faure was Ravel’s teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, and also his friend. In general, Ravel ruffled MANY feathers with the school’s administration, who were very conservative. Generally, Faure was Ravel’s champion, but he gave a thumbs down for the quartet. Not very sportsman-like, but there it is.
Claude Debussy, with whom Ravel had a complicated relationship, liked it. Before its first performance, Debussy wrote to Ravel, “Don’t touch anything and everything will be fine.” In general, Debussy and Ravel admired each other, but after something of a rift over claims of who invented something first, they admired each other from afar.
Critics were divided. In general, this went in the to-be-expected way. Those who already liked Ravel also liked the String Quartet ("one of the masters of tomorrow"), those who didn't thought differently ("chiefly remarkable for vagueness of significance, incoherence, and weird harmonic eccentricities").
And now, we generally have come around to recognizing this work as a masterpiece in all ways. Carnegie Hall published a list its 5 most frequently performed string quartets, and Ravel came in at number 3 (after Schubert's Death and the Maiden and Debussy's quartet and before Beethoven's Opus 59 (Razumovsky) #2 and Dvorak's #12 (American).)
The filmmaker Wes Anderson definitely likes it. It features prominently in his 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums. Which is also fantastic. Shout out to the weirdo artists. They are the best.
Silver Screen
March 7 & 8
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