PROGRAMME NOTES

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862 – 1918)

Danses sacrée et profane for Harp & Strings

In 1894 the French piano maker Pleyel had just invented a chromatic harp which, because of an extra set of strings, removed the need for pedals. As part of their marketing for the instrument the firm commissioned Debussy to write a piece showing off the instrument’s capabilities. Of course, Debussy could have created something purely functional, but his Danses sacrée et profane has gone on to become one of his most admired works.

The ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ labels of the title are perhaps better understood as ‘spiritual’ and ‘earthly’. The first of the two dances has an air of ancient religiosity and recalls medieval chants in the string melodies under the harp’s glistening melody. The composer himself once noted the ‘gravity’ of the opening dance in a letter to fellow composer Manuel de Falla. By contrast, the composer pointed to the ‘grace’ of the second of the two dances. His exploration of the ‘profane’ – the earthly, the secular, the sensual – is a lilting waltz which nods to the lively music of the Mediterranean, particularly Spain. It seems that Debussy was sceptical about the potential of Pleyel’s new instrument, and indeed the company ceased production of the chromatic harp by 1930. Happily – as we’ll hear in this concert – the piece can be performed on pedal harp or even piano.

Programme note by Elizabeth Davis

LEOŠ JANÁČEK (1854 – 1928)

String Quartet No. 1 “Kreutzer Sonata”

I. Adagio – Con moto

II. Con moto

III. Con moto – Vivo – Andante

IV. Con moto – (Adagio) – Più mosso

Janáček’s first string quartet is a curious case of cross-pollination in various art forms: it is a sonata (for string quartet), based on a book, based on a sonata! The composer was inspired after reading Tolstoy’s novella “The Kreutzer Sonata”, which was in turn inspired by Beethoven’s 9th violin sonata, named after its dedicatee Rodolphe Kreutzer. Earlier sketches of some of the music show that Janáček had conceived a piano trio (now lost), and music from that trio turned into this string quartet.

The Europe of 1923 was reeling from years of violence from the Great War, and the idea of suffering permeates this composition. Janáček imagined a poor woman like the one from Tolstoy’s book, and the music paints a psychological drama: the opening few seconds lays out a slow rising-falling motif followed by a Moravian folk tune (“Šohajíčku, čí si” — “Dear young man, whose are you?”), and these two ideas alternate throughout the movement, with some very unyielding repetition. More lyrical moments show the type of melodic writing that Janáček was famous for: based on long years of studying speech patterns, his melodies closely shadow the speech patterns of the Czech language. (Look for falling 4ths and 5ths at the ends of phrases, as well as quick falling fragments.)

The second movement is also similarly dry in tone, with scratchy sul ponticello effects from the string players, where they play with their bows close to or on the bridge. Short melodic fragments get passed around all four players and the middle point of the movement introduces a strangely angular chorale. There is deep unease throughout, and even if there is a quiet ending, violence is never far from the surface. The third movement demonstrates this as well, with calmer soloistic moments interrupted by violent sawing from the ensemble. Outbursts of plucked strings and syncopated rhythms bring more darkness, and even in the final movement, there is little peace to be had.

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833 – 1897)

String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 18

I. Allegro ma non troppo

II. Andante, ma moderato

III. Scherzo: Allegro molto

IV. Rondo: Poco allegretto e graziso

From these later masters we turn to Brahms, whose early essay in the genre came only after he had established his compositional credentials with several large piano works and obtained the blessings of Robert Schumann. It is not often performed, and the obvious choice when programming a German string sextet falls to Schoenberg’s echt-

Romantic Transfigured Night. Brahms succumbs to the German propensity for profundity here, with very thick writing, but he had Joseph Joachim (the eventual dedicatee of the huge Violin Concerto) to advise him with the string writing and even some compositional details.

The expansive three-in-a-bar that the Sextet opens with proved to be an eventual favourite of Brahms. His sensitive use of hemiola and crossrhythm to destabilise the beat had been well learnt from Schumann, and the first movement abounds in themes that allowed him to show off that rhythmic flexibility. The soothing melodies of the cello give way to a flowing triplet accompaniment (another Brahms favourite). Brahms’s penchant for playing the lower strings off the violins, as he does in the symphonies, are evident here, and he juggles thematic fragments across all six players with great skill.

Brahms loved the theme and variation form deeply, and here, in the slow movement, the unwinding of a serious theme into a deeply-felt dramatic buildup before the warmth of the major key shines through demonstrates a master at work. This movement nods towards Beethoven, another musical hero of his, and certainly the Scherzo does too: the rustic flavour recalls the equivalent passage from Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.

Joachim remained of the opinion that Brahms’s final movement was a little too indebted to Schubert (even going so far as to call the ending a bit weak), and indeed it could almost be a re-instrumentation of a Schubert rondo. But a composer being able to imitate musical models is no real fault, and indeed, the charm of the cello theme is undeniable. Brahms, humble as always, called this work “trash” in a letter to Clara Schumann, and wrote that she should burn it; it is a good thing she was much more lenient with his work than she was with Robert’s!

Programme notes by Thomas Ang