String Quartet in C minor (unfinished), Op.35

Grave - modéré

Très calme

Working on the first movement of his Quartet in C minor in the summer of 1898, Chausson wrote to a violinist friend to inform him of the progress he was making: “I believe it’s neither Franck, nor d’Indy, nor Debussy, although I’m afraid it might be a little too directly influenced by Beethoven.” The sad irony of that statement is that, while it is true that the work has a sound of its own, the composer died before he could complete it and Vincent d’Indy had to be called in to add the final bars to the third movement. In that the work is still far from complete in its three-movement form – as d’Indy himself believed, a fourth movement was surely intended – the Quartet in C minor is perhaps best represented by performing only the two movements that the composer had time to put into a definitive form.

Listening to the Grave introduction, where the opening cello melody is taken up in counterpoint by the other instruments, you know what Chausson meant about Beethoven, even though the likeness is a matter more of a comparable seriousness of purpose than of actual material. It is, on the other hand, free of the Franck influence that is so prominent in Chausson’s major chamber work, the Concerto for piano, violin and string quartet of 1891, while it is no less conscientious in the structural strategy behind it. The quicker part of the first movement is masterful not only in developing its two main themes – the second of them even slightly Debussyesque in its supple line sustained over a pizzicato accompaniment – but also in integrating them with the cello melody from the opening bars. As well as supplying the cells from which the other themes grow, the cello melody reappears in something like its original form in the middle of the movement and shortly before the end.

The opening of the slow movement recalls perhaps the beginning of Beethoven’s Op.131, although this is no fugue but a remarkably free development of just one basic theme. Largely contrapuntal in texture, as its melodic material changes shape and, without touching on any extreme contrasts, assumes different harmonic colours, it is an impressive example of both subtly varied lyrical expression and    sustained linear thinking.

It was while he was working on the third movement of the Quartet in C minor, in a rented country cottage at Limay near Mantes, that Chausson took a break by going for a bicycle ride and - no one knows exactly how - fell off so heavily that the accident killed him.

Grave - modéré

Très calme

Gaiement et pas trop vite

Working on the first movement of his Quartet in C minor in the summer of 1898, Chausson wrote to a violinist friend to inform him of the progress he was making: “I believe it’s neither Franck, nor d’Indy, nor Debussy, although I’m afraid it might be a little too directly influenced by Beethoven.” The sad irony of that statement is that, while it is true that the work has a sound of its own, the composer died before he could complete it and Vincent d’Indy had to be called in to add the final bars to the third movement. Although, as d’Indy himself believed, a fourth movement was surely intended, the Quartet in C minor is a viable and, indeed, fascinating concert item in its three-movement form.

Listening to the Grave introduction, where the opening cello melody is taken up in counterpoint by the other instruments, you know what Chausson meant about Beethoven, even though the likeness is a matter more of a comparable seriousness of purpose than of actual material. It is, on the other hand, free of the Franck influence that is so prominent in Chausson’s major chamber work, the Concerto for piano, violin and string quartet of 1891, while it is no less conscientious in the structural strategy behind it. The quicker part of the first movement is masterful not only in developing its two main themes - the second of them even slightly Debussyesque in its supple line sustained over a pizzicato accompaniment - but also in integrating them with the cello melody from the opening bars. As well as supplying the cells from which the other themes grow, the cello melody reappears in something like its original form in the middle of the movement and shortly before the end.

The opening of the slow movement recalls perhaps the beginning of Beethoven’s Op.131, although this is no fugue but a remarkably free development of just one basic theme. Largely contrapuntal in texture, it is an impressive example of both sustained linear thinking and of subtly varied lyrical expression as its melodic material changes shape and, without touching on any extreme contrasts, assumes different harmonic colours.

It was while he was working on the third movement of the Quartet in C minor, in a rented country cottage at Limay near Mantes, that Chausson took a break by going for a bicycle ride with his daugher and - no one knows exactly how - fell off so heavily that the accident killed him. What he had in mind for the fourth movement, it is difficult to guess, although his Franckiste background might well have led him to make way for the work’s opening cello melody at some point before the end. However, that might be, the third movement is a highly accomplished rapprochement of two main themes, the first of them (in dotted rhythm) recalling the scherzo of Beethoven’s Op.127, the second derived from an idea already presented in the first movement. D’Indy’s ending is probably too conclusive for the third of four movements but appropriate enough if the third has to be the last.

Gerald Larner©