String quartet

In Classical music, the string quartet is a formation of Chamber music made up of two Violon S, a viola and a Violoncelle. It is also the musical Forme dedicated to this type of formation - more exactly, a Sonate “in Quatuor”.

the string quartet is without question the formation queen of the chamber music: among the innumerable combinations possible - since the Duet with the Dixtuor - only perhaps the Trio with Piano (piano, violin, violoncello) can claim to have a repertory also extended and rich in masterpieces.

the string quartet, as a musical genre, develops within the framework of the gallant Style and under the influence of the Divertimento about the middle of the 18th century. It originates in the regrouping of the string instruments within the Orchestre, the Contrebasse S being satisfied to double the Violoncelle S. If the first quartets of Luigi Boccherini are in fact of the Symphonie S for cords, Stamitz and Gossec distinguishes among their quartets those which must be played four of those which must be played by an orchestra (for example the opus 14 of Stamitz is titrated Quatuors for orchestra ).

Characteristics

Starting from Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the quartet becomes the kind more in vogue of the repertory of Chamber music. The structure henceforth marries an quasi-immutable model, which will remain a reference, although it was called in question on several occasions (COp 131 of Beethoven):

1st movement: Sonata form.
2nd movement: adagio, being able to marry the structure of a Lied, sonata form slow movement , topic and variations or a simple structure HAS B has .
3rd movement: Minuet and Trio, then Scherzo starting from Beethoven.
4th movement: Rondo, Rondo-sonata or Rondo varied.

The success of the string quartet rests on sound aspects at the same time and sociological S. the counterpoint to four left makes it possible to make hear all the Harmonie S without superfluous lining. The quartet allows moreover a great homogeneity of stamp and the équipollence of the voices in work contrapuntic.

The traditional period

Joseph Haydn is generally regarded as the father of the string quartet. One finds before him works written for two violins, viola and violoncello - Sammartini and Boccherini, in particular - but it is to give him which knew to create this kind, based on the balance of four votes independent, equal in importance but strongly overlapping, and him its noble letters as well as a important repertory - 54 quartets.

Contemporary of Haydn, Mozart admired much his quartets and it composed some too. The production of Mozart consists primarily of 4 cycles of quartets where it equalized his elder in the two last. The quartets of the third cycle are dedicated to Haydn. Some bear small names, like the quartet of the “dissonances” in major C , famous for harmonic frictions of the first measurements, or “Hunting”. The last three are dedicated to king de Prusse, from where them nickname of Prussians: the violoncello plays a paramount role there. Mozart, by his innate direction of the Polyphony, knew to make sing each instrument of the quartet. However, the divertimento for trio with cords and the six Quintette S with cords - with two violas - constitute without doubts of the tops even more remarkable in its production.

Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven did not approach the quartet before the 30 years age when it published a first collection of six quartets, the opus 18. They testify to a perfect control of the writing but remain, stylistiquement, in the shade of Haydn. The revolution will intervene with the three quartets “Razumovski”, opus 59: Beethoven exploded there the traditional mould: as it had done in another field, the sonatas for Piano, it stretches the forms, pushes the serious developments, nuances, and the acute , the repetitions until aggravation. Its way will continue with the opus the 74 “Toothings-stone”, where it reaches the plenitude of its second creative period. One second rupture intervenes with the opus 95 “serioso”, rough and even precipice. Shorter, more concentrated than the precedents, its modernity is surprising and surprises our ears still today. It will undoubtedly be necessary to await Bartók to hear something of more modern in the field of the quartet. The last quartets are as many masterpieces: it is on them that it devoted the essence of its last years, having completed the 9 {{E}} symphony, having walled in loneliness and deafness. Wagner said these quartets which one would not have them to play in public, because they were the expression of a great suffering. The fact is, for the interpreters as for the public, which should not be approached these unsurpassable masterpieces without preparation.

The romantic period

The shade of large Beethoven weighed much on the musicians who followed it, in the field of the quartet more still than in the Symphonie. Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms or Smetana approached or equalized, but did not exceed the model beethovénien. Let us note the exception of Schubert, which found in its last three quartets - like in the quintet with two violoncellos - the personal expression of a completed genius: contemporary of Beethoven, it died 18 months only after him.

The quartet is extremely snuffed Compositeur S romantic S. It remains synonymous with effort, concentration and rigor. During all the 19th century, there remains a specificity German E, and French E to a lesser extent - in particular at the end of the century -, with some exceptions, as the presence testifies some to a quartet in the catalog of Giuseppe Verdi. Of course, the Type-setter S marked by the Wagnerian esthetics of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), the Music with program (Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt) or by the chromatism and the orchestral power of Wagner (Anton Bruckner, whose string quintet is nevertheless splendid, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss), ignore the quartet.

It goes without saying that in the debate which opposes, in second half of the 19th century, holding them of the pure music - Eduard Hanslick, Johannes Brahms - with the defenders of the music with program - Franz Liszt and her circle of Weimar -, the string quartet represents for the first the noble kind par excellence: the listening of a quartet is synonymous with contemplation of the musical forms for itself, in opposition to a listening which would be guided by a poetic program.

The 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, the string quartet is for certain type-setters, such Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Maurice Ravel, Béla Bartók, Claude Debussy, synonymous with experimentation, stage in the search for an ideal as regards musical Composition, so much so that the critic musical contemporary Dominique Jameux spoke about laboratory of forms . The quartet of Gabriel Fauré (1924) is the work of a musician eager to complete his long career of type-setter by a masterpiece of purity and asceticism. They are in these last case works primarily isolated even if they are often of an major importance in the history of the music.

On the contrary, Darius Milhaud (18 quartets), Heitor Villa-Lobos (17 quartets), and especially Dmitri Chostakovitch (15 quartets), has by the importance and the quality of their cycle, contributed to renew the tradition of this musical form.

One must also quote the quartets of Vincent d' Indy, Albéric Magnard, Leoš Janáček, Benjamin Britten, Paul Hindemith, Georges Enesco, Bohuslav Martinů, Alexandre Tansman, Marcel Mihalovici, etc

The young generation of the post-war period tries a renewal of the quartet - Olivier Messiaen, Quatuor for the end of time , for violin, violoncello, Clarinette and Piano, written in captivity in a prison camp in Silesia during the Second world war; Pierre Boulez, Book for string quartet of 1948 - before relegating it among the parts of a museum of the musical genres pertaining to a completed past.

The following generations, marked by the Postmodernité, are réintéressent with the kind, in a concern of dialoguing with the history and of joining again with the tradition. If György Ligeti and Elliott Carter has the appearance of precursors in this field, Alfred Schnittke in Russia, Helmut Lachenmann in Germany, Brian Ferneyhough in Great Britain, Philippe Fénelon, Philippe Harrowing and Nigel Keay in France, each one following its own way, seems more not to want to derogate from the rule according to which any experienced type-setter must measure himself with a kind always considered difficult.

Conclusion

Very few type-setters after Haydn did not approach the string quartet - among them, Berlioz, Liszt, Chopin and Wagner. But all those which did it there left more the close friend and often best of themselves. Let us think of Fauré, a few months before its death, type-setter largely recognized and appreciated: he humbly submits a quartet to his close relations in their asking whether it is to destroy best or to preserve it… Extremely fortunately for us, it did not destroy it. It will have been included/understood, to make a history of the quartet, it is to make a little story of the music.

Brief bibliography

See too

External bonds

international Contest of string quartet of Bordeaux (ex Evian), organized every two years within the framework of the Large Theater of Bordeaux

Internal bonds

List of the string quartets
Together musical
musical Form
Musical genre
String instrument rubbed
Quartet
Sonata
musical Structure

Note & Références

Random links: