A very full afternoon of string quartets today. Three full works, plus a nearly-complete movement. My back is tired: occupational hazard for a violist.
A difficult piece in the Haydn String Quartet project today, the F-sharp minor Op. 50, No. 4. Haydn does love to take his players to unusual keys. The problem with F-sharp minor isn't the key itself, which has only three sharps: it's that you often have to play in the parallel major, which in this case has six sharps. I'm not sure I'll ever be a good enough sight-reader to read six sharps on the viola. Perhaps practice would help, but there seem to be many more common things that need practicing first!
Still, the parts of the piece that weren't littered with sharps went quite well, particularly the fugue in the last movement. I think this is the last Haydn quartet with a fugue; there were three in Opus 20, and this definitely feels like an echo of one of those. The Henle edition we played from was silent on this point, but the cellist recommended we play "sotto voce" until the forte near the end, and the effect was wonderful.
Next up was Mendelssohn's E-minor quartet, Op. 44, No. 2. I love Mendelssohn; he's so clearly a string player. His music just "lies under the hand" as we say; it sounds more difficult than it is. We did a great job with this, I thought. I was especially impressed with the second violinist, who had never played or even heard the piece before. We had some duets in octaves that were perfectly together: marvelous!
Contrasting with the Mendelssohn was Brahms' quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2. Now don't get me wrong: I love Brahms. But he is very clearly not a string player. There's a rumor (I heard it again today) that he played the viola, but I can't believe it; Wikipedia says that he studied the cello, and I find that almost as difficult to believe. Nothing he writes for the viola is technically impossible to play, but it's just so awkward. Brahms knew this about himself; he wrote, "Oh, how much more agreeable and sensible it is to write for an instrument one knows thoroughly --- as I presume to know the piano." This quartet is particularly challenging, because it's all about the tritone (an interval of three whole steps together, say from D-sharp to A), and that's an awkward interval in the viola.
We finished up reading through Mozart's unfinished Rondo in A major, K. 464a (or K. Anh. 72). This was probably the first version of the finale for his A-major quartet, one of the six dedicated to Haydn. It's frustrating, because it's almost finished: one more pass through the rondo theme and he would have been done. I have to admit, I like the published finale better, but this is beautiful music that's well worth hearing and playing.
Brahms' writing for string instruments may be awkward but nothing as close to Schumann. Schumann was a pianist first and foremost, and his string quartets reflect that, with two many string crossings and arpeggios which lie well on the piano but not on string instruments.
ReplyDeleteToday I am doing some arrangements for cello and piano. I play both instruments, but write at the piano. After I write a phrase, I imagine playing it on the cello. I've modified the composition several times after realizing how poorly it would lie under the bow.