About the Program
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91)
String Quartet in D minor, K. 421
Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg
Died December 5, 1791, Vienna
Mozart’s move to Vienna in 1781 opened new musical vistas for him, and these must have seemed all the more exciting after so many years in provincial Salzburg. Among the attractions of his adopted city were the string quartets of Haydn, whose Opus 33 quartets were published in Vienna in 1782. Mozart had written no string quartets since 1773, but now—impressed by what Haydn had achieved with this most demanding of forms—Mozart wrote a set of six quartets and dedicated them to Haydn. In that dedication, Mozart noted that these quartets were the product of “long and laborious study,” and there is evidence that Mozart—usually a fast worker—took a long time indeed with these quartets, revising each carefully.
It is a magnificent cycle. Each of the six is distinctive in its own way, and certain moments stay to haunt the mind: the fugal finale of K.387, which looks ahead to the “Jupiter” Symphony; K.464, which so impressed Beethoven that he modeled one of his own quartets on it; and K.465, the “Dissonant,” with its enigmatic beginning. Yet even in such distinguished company, the Quartet in D Minor, K.421, composed in June 1783, stands out as radically different. The only one of the cycle in a minor key, it is one of the most serious and powerful works that Mozart ever wrote. A minor-key quartet was not by itself unusual, and Haydn (who usually published his quartets in groups of six) would often include one minor-key quartet in a set. But no Haydn quartet—great a master as he was of that form—ever matched the expressive power of Mozart’s Quartet in D Minor. Individual keys had specific meanings for Mozart, and D minor, the key of the Piano Concerto No. 20 and of the Requiem, was the key he sometimes associated with revenge in his operas. This quartet is by no means program music, but the mood here partakes of that dark spirit—this is somber and unrelenting music.
The Allegro opens with the first violin’s falling octave on D, and there follows a long and intense melody—marked sotto voce—for that instrument over unobtrusive accompaniment from the other voices. A more flowing second subject makes brief appearances, but the dark first theme dominates this movement. Mozart asks for the standard exposition retreat, but then offers performers the opportunity to repeat the entire development. The recapitulation continues to develop the movement’s material, and finally the cello leads the way into the brief coda with a dark and expressive idea of its own.
The Andante, in F major, affords relief with its gentle main theme. Mozart had originally intended a somewhat simpler melodic idea here; his manuscript shows that he recognized the limits of that theme and replaced it. While this is not a variation movement, the lyric main idea undergoes a process of continuous evolution, sometimes with the most delicate shading, before Mozart brings back a reprise of the opening and rounds things off with a quiet coda. By sharp contrast, the Menuetto is fierce, almost clenched in its chromatic intensity. And then Mozart springs one of his most effective surprises: the
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trio eases into D major, and–over pizzicato accompaniment—the first violin sings an elegant, soaring melody built on Lombard rhythms (dotted rhythms with the short note coming first). The viola joins the second statement before the return to the driven minuet. The finale is a theme-and-variation movement. Mozart’s dancing main theme bears more than a passing resemblance to the main theme of the finale of Haydn’s Quartet in G Major, Opus 33, No. 5. Perhaps this was intended as an act of homage, but Mozart’s version of this theme is quite subtle: it tints the home key of D minor with hints of D major, and the harmonic tension of this beginning will energize the entire movement. Four variations follow: the second brings a famous syncopated accompaniment from the second violin, the third features the tawny sound of the viola, the fourth moves into D major. At the very end, Mozart brings back his original theme but now marks it Più Allegro, and the music rushes ahead on tense chromatic lines to the sudden end, where the first violin’s falling octave D rounds off this glorious quartet with the same gesture that began it.
Benjamin Britten (1913–76)
String Quartet No. 1 in D-Major, Op. 25
Born November 22, 1913, Lowestoft
Died December 4, 1976, Aldeburgh
Benjamin Britten, a pacifist, left England in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II and set out to establish himself as a composer in this country: the New York Philharmonic premiered his Violin Concerto in 1940 and his Sinfonia da Requiem in 1941. In the spring of 1941, Britten and his companion Peter Pears drove an aging Model A across the United States to Escondido, California, where they spent the summer as guests of the duo-piano team Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson. While there, Britten received a visit from the distinguished American patron of the arts Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who commissioned a string quartet from the 27-year-old composer. Britten would receive $400 for the quartet, but there was a time constraint–the premiere was scheduled for the end of the summer. To a friend, Britten wrote: “Short notice & a bit of a sweat, but I’ll do it as the cash will be useful!” The Coolidge Quartet gave the premiere of the String Quartet in D Major in Los Angeles with Britten in attendance on September 21, 1941.
The String Quartet in D Major seems to look both backward and forward at the same time. Its form appears quite traditional. It is in four movements, and these seem to conform to the shape of the classical string quartet: a sonata-form first movement, a scherzo, a slow movement, and a fast finale. But to describe Britten’s First String Quartet that way is to miss the originality of this music. This quartet is remarkable for the sound-world Britten creates, for the structure of its movements, for the way themes reappear in different guises, and for its unexpected key relationships.
The unusual sound-world is evident from the first instant of the Andante sostenuto, where the two violins and viola—set very high in their range—play a pulsing pattern that Britten specifies must be both triple piano and molto vibrato; far below, the pizzicato cello has completely different material. These two opening ideas, sounded simultaneously but so unlike each other, will return in different forms later in the quartet. The long opening section gives way to a rhythmic, angular Allegro vivo derived from the very beginning, and Britten shifts back and forth between these two themes at quite different tempos before the movement winks out on barely audible pizzicatos.
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Briefest of the movements, the Allegretto con slancio (“impetuous”) proceeds along its steady 3/4 pulse, but soon this is bristling with energy: sharp attacks, trills, whistling runs. After the violent end of the second movement, the third brings a world of calm (it is in fact marked Andante calmo). The 5/4 meter of this movement at first masks the fact that its opening is a subtle variation of the beginning of the first movement. The music grows more animated in its central episode, which is in turn derived from the pizzicato cello of the very beginning.
The finale, marked Molto vivace, demands virtuoso performers. It begins with what seems an isolated fragment, a quick two-measure phrase for the first violin. But quickly the other instruments pick this up and treat it to some blistering contrapuntal extension. The energy never lets up in this movement, which races to its resounding close on a firm D-major chord.
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
String Quartet in D minor, D. 810 "Death and the Maiden"
Born January 31, 1797, Vienna
Died November 19, 1828, Vienna
In the fall of 1822 Schubert became extremely ill, and every indication is that he had contracted syphilis. The effect on him—physically and emotionally—was devastating. He was quite ill throughout 1823, so seriously in May that he had to be hospitalized. His health had in fact been shattered permanently, and he would never be fully well again. The cause of his death five years later at 31, officially listed as typhoid, was probably at least partially a result of syphilis. Emotionally, the illness was so destructive that he never went back to complete the symphony he had been working on when he contracted the disease—it would come to be known as the “Unfinished.”
By early 1824 Schubert had regained some measure of health and strength, and he turned to chamber music, composing two string quartets, the second of them in D minor. The nickname Der Tod und Das Mädchen (“Death and the Maiden”) comes from Schubert’s use of a theme from his 1817 song by that name as the basis for a set of variations in the quartet’s second movement. In the song, which sets a poem of Matthias Claudius, death beckons a young girl; she begs him to pass her over, but he insists, saying that his embrace is soothing, like sleep. It is easy to believe that, under the circumstances, the thought of soothing death may have held some attraction for the composer.
The quartet itself is extremely dramatic. The Allegro rips to life with a five-note figure spit out by all four instruments. This hardly feels like chamber music. One can easily imagine this figure stamped out furiously by a huge orchestra, and the dramatic nature of this movement marks it as nearly symphonic (in fact, Gustav Mahler arranged this quartet for string orchestra in 1894, and that version is performed and recorded today). A gentle second subject brings a measure of relief, but the hammering triplet of the opening figure is never far away—it can be heard quietly in the accompaniment, as part of the main theme, and as part of the development. The Allegro, which lasts a full quarter of an hour, comes to a quiet close with the triplet rhythm sounding faintly in the distance.
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The Andante con moto is deceptively simple. From the song Der Tod und Das Mädchen, Schubert uses only death’s music, which is an almost static progression of chords; the melody moves quietly within the chords. But from that simple progression Schubert writes five variations that are themselves quite varied—by turns soaring, achingly lyric, fierce, calm—and the wonder is that so simple a chordal progression can yield music of such expressiveness and variety.
After two overpowering movements, the Scherzo: Allegro molto might seem almost lightweight, for it is extremely short. But it returns to the slashing mood of the opening movement and takes up that same strength. The trio sings easily in the lower voices as the first violin flutters and decorates their melodic line. An unusual feature of the trio is that it has no repeat—Schubert instead writes an extension of the trio, almost a form of variation itself.
The final movement, appropriately marked Presto, races ahead on its 6/8 rhythm. Some listeners have felt that this movement is death-haunted, and they point out that its main theme is a tarantella, the old dance of death, and that Schubert also quotes quietly from his own song Erlkönig. Significantly, the phrase he quotes in that song sets death’s words “Mein liebes Kind, komm geh mit mir” (My dear child, come go with me), which is precisely the message of the song Der Tod und das Mädchen. What this movement is “about” must be left to each listener to decide, but it is hard to believe this music death-haunted. The principal impression it makes is of overwhelming power—propulsive rhythms, huge blocks of sound, sharp dynamic contrasts—and the very ending, a dazzling rush marked Prestissimo that suddenly leaps into D major, blazes with life.
Program notes by Eric Bromberger
About the Artist Castalian String Quartet
“A powerful individuality of sound matched by an instinctive singularity of musical intention” —The Scotsman
Since its formation in 2011, the London-based Castalian Quartet has distinguished itself as one of the most dynamic, sophisticated young string quartets performing today. Appointed the inaugural Hans Keller String Quartet in Residence at the Oxford University Faculty of Music in 2021, they are also the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s 2019 Young Artists Award. The Quartet is gaining international acclaim as they take their talents abroad, having performed at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonic, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Paris Philharmonie, Vienna Konzerthaus, Montreal’s Salle Bourgie, Carnegie Hall, and the Spoleto USA Festival, among many other esteemed venues worldwide.
The Castalian Quartet will tour North America in the 2022–23 season with performances in San Diego and Berkeley, California; Schenectady and Buffalo, NY; Middlebury, VT; Waterford, VA; Durham, NC; and Toronto in Canada. The Quartet collaborates with many living composers, including recent premieres of works by Mark-Anthony Turnage, Charlotte Bray, and Edmund Finnis. In the 2023–24 season, they will perform several
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US concerts with pianist Stephen Hough featuring Hough’s own string quartet in addition to the Brahms quintet. They have also established a strong presence abroad, with performances of the complete Haydn Op. 76 Quartets at Wigmore Hall; concerts at the Paris Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. They have played at the Heidelberger Frühling, East Neuk, Zwischentöne in Engelberg, Neuchatel Chamber Music Switzerland, and Banff International Festivals. Further afield, they undertook tours of China and Colombia.
In spring 2022, the Castalian Quartet released its first recording, Between Two Worlds (Delphian), featuring works by Thomas Adès, Beethoven, and first violinist Sini Simonen’s own arrangements of early works by Orlando de Lassus and John Dowland. BBC Music Magazine raved: “Perceptively programmed, Between Two Worlds explores the mystic properties of time through a series of intricately connected works, each performed with rare beauty and originality by a quartet working at the height of its powers,” and praised the quartet as “intimately alive to every shift of colour and mood in this extraordinary score and succeeds in conjuring the sense of both deep contemplation and vivid spontaneity.” Gramophone praised the album as “consistently sensitive; bright, focused, [and] agile. . . this excellent presentation facilitates a highly creative brand of time travel . . . a most fascinating release.”
The Castalian Quartet studied with Oliver Wille (Kuss Quartet) at the Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media, graduating with a master’s degree. In addition to the above, awards include Third Prize at the 2016 Banff Quartet Competition and First Prize at the 2015 Lyon Chamber Music Competition. The Quartet was selected by Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) in 2016. They have received coaching from Simon Rowland-Jones, David Waterman and Isabel Charisius.
Their name is derived from the Castalian Spring in the ancient city of Delphi. According to Greek mythology, the nymph Castalia transformed herself into a fountain to evade Apollo’s pursuit, thus creating a source of poetic inspiration for all who drink from her waters. Herman Hesse chose Castalia as the name of his futuristic European utopia in The Glass Bead Game. The novel’s protagonist, a Castalian by the name of Knecht, is mentored in this land of intellectual thought and education by the venerable Music Master.
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