Monday October 26, 2009

Friends of Chamber Music

Jupiter String Quartet

Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet in F minor, Op.80

Claude Debussy: String Quartet in G minor (12/7/07)


Claude Debussy (1862-1910): String Quartet in G minor, Op. 10
I. Animé et très décidée
II. Assez vif et bien rythmé
III. Andantino, doucement expressif
IV. Très modéré--Très movementé et avec passion

Debussy started his only string quartet in 1892, about the same time as the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. He had trouble with the last movement, as he confided to Ernest Chausson: “I can’t get it into the shape I want, and that’s the third time of trying.” He finished the work the following year and dedicated it to the Ysaÿe Quartet, which gave the first performance in Paris on December 29, 1893.
The audience, accustomed to the quartets of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, was bewildered. One critic mentioned “orgies of modulation” from a composer “rotten with talent.” One of the quartet’s champions was Paul Dukas, who hailed Debussy as “one of the most gifted and original artists of the young generation of musicians…a lyricist in the full sense of the term.” Despite being consulted in the composition of the quartet, Chausson disliked it. Debussy promised to write a second quartet, which would “bring more dignity to the form,” but never finished a second quartet.
The first quartet owes a debut to Alexander Borodin and César Frank, especially the latter’s “cyclical form.” Accordingly Debussy begins his quartet with a germinal theme, which figures in all the other movements. The second movement is a scherzo with rhythmic plucked strings and guitar-like effects. Manuel de Falla said “most of it could pass for one of the finest Andalusian dances ever written.” The third movement begins and ends with muted strings, with an increasingly intense climax in between. The finale starts with a fugue-like slow introduction, then launches into a whirlwind summary of the previous movements.