String Quartet No.4

It is perhaps because of their extreme departures from harmonic and rhythmic precedent that Bartók’s middle-period quartets are so symmetrically organised. The Fourth is the supreme example of concentric or arch-form construction. At its centre is the pro­foundly intimate Non troppo lento around which there is an inner layer of two scherzos, one muted and the other pizzicato, which are themselves flanked by two closely related Allegro movements. It is all based on one short theme – a rising and falling motif heard first on cello in the opening Allegro and for the last time in the powerfully conclusive coda of the Allegro molto.

Schumann had a long tradition of    German string quartets to support him as he ventured into that field. When Bartók created the Hungarian string quartet – or what actually turned out to be the modern string quartet – he was on his own. It is perhaps because of their extreme departures from harmonic and rhythmic precedent, in a style derived largely from Magyar peasant music, that Bartók’s middle-period quartets are so symmetrically organised. The Fourth is the supreme example of concentric or arch-form construction. At its centre is the pro­foundly intimate Non troppo lento around which there is an inner layer of two scherzos, one muted and the other pizzicato, which are themselves flanked by two closely related Allegro movements. It is all based on one short theme – a rising and falling motif heard first on cello in the opening Allegro and for the last time in the powerfully conclusive coda to the wild Hungarian dance of the Allegro molto finale.

Mozart had Haydn, and Beethoven had both; Debussy had Franck, and Ravel had both; when Bartók created the Hungarian string quartet – or what actually turned out to be the modern string quartet – he was on his own. Actually, he too had learned something from Debussy but from the point where his string-quartet music turns in a distinctively and delib­erately Magyar direction (somewhat abruptly in the middle movement of Quartet No.2) there was increasingly little room for any kind of harmony or colouring but his own. It is perhaps because the departure from precedent was so extreme in the Third, Fourth and Fifth quartets that the structure of all three of them is so symmetrically organised: it is as though Bartók needed to assure both himself and his audience that, however disorientating the harmonies and the rhythms might be, the overall shape is unassailably firm and unshak­ably logical.

The String Quartet No.4 - which was written in Budapest between July and September 1928 and, though dedicated to the Pro Arte Quartet, first performed by the faithful Waldbauer-Kerpely Quartet less than a year later - is the supreme example of concentric construction. Its core is the pro­foundly intimate slow movement, Non troppo lento, around which there is an inner layer of two scherzos, one muted and the other pizzicato, which are themselves flanked by two closely related Allegro movements. It is all based, moreover, on one short theme.

    The problem is that, since the basic idea of the construction is that it is sealed only when the outer circle is complete, it is not immediately clear which of the several melodic ideas introduced at the beginning of the first Allegro, is to be the most influential. It is not in fact the urgent theme on first violin in the opening bars nor the upward striding steps on the cello underneath it. It is the intentionally rough-sounding chromatic motif - three notes rising and three notes falling through the narrow interval of a minor third - which is heard at an early stage on the cello and then taken up by the whole ensemble in a brief exchange of muscular counterpoint. The second subject, which follows after half a bar of silence, is a contrast­ingly quiet legato melody with the same shape as the other but covering a wider interval in its chromatic steps. By the end of the movement, which closes on a particularly forceful statement of the six-note motif, it is clear which is the more significant theme.

The first of the two scherzos - a cloud of insects hovering on muted strings, swooping up on bowed and pizzicato glissandos and fluttering down on minutely detailed sul ponticello figuration - is also based on two main themes. The first of them, a chromatic run up and down a fifth presented on viola and cello in the opening bars, is clearly related to main theme of the preceding movement; the other is a more sharply defined theme which is energetically exchanged by first and second violins in the middle section,

    The heart of the work is the Non troppo lento. It is so expressive, so atmos­pherically coloured, so picturesque even that it might not be too fanciful to think of it as a serenade. Against the motionless background of opaque harmonies sustained by the other three instruments, the cello utters an eloquent soliloquy. It grows louder and more passionate but finds no answer except in an elaborate cadenza of nocturnal birdsong on the first violin. At the centre of the movement - at the very centre of the work - the material of the first section is displaced and eerily, sometimes aggressively recoloured, the recitative now on the G-string of the second violin and the birdsong mainly in harmonics on the viola. When the cello resumes its plea, however, it is answered immediately, the first violin joining it in canon with an upside-down mirror reflection of its melodic line. After that, the now muted cello sinks quietly into the night-time background.

    The second (Allegretto) scherzo takes the material of the first (Prestissimo)    and treats it in a different manner - obviously by applying the fingers where the bow was applied before but also by expanding the intervals of the chromatic runs and by marking each appearance of the second main theme with two slaps of the “Bartok pizzicato,” the fiercely plucked string rebounding noisily on the finger board. A similar transformation is performed by the last movement on the material of the first Allegro, again expanding the intervals but this time converting it into a wild Hungarian dance. The main theme of the work makes its first re-entry in a comparatively lyrical middle section and reappears as the motivating force of a powerfully conclusive coda.