String Quartet: “Ainsi la nuit” (1976)

Introduction - I Nocturne -

Parenthèse 1 - II Miroir d’espace -

Parenthèse 2 - III Litanies

Parenthèse 3 - IV Litanies 2 -

Parenthèse 4 - V Constellations -

VI Nocturne 2 -

VII Temps suspendu

Henri Dutilleux is, with Pierre Boulez, one of the two leading French composers of the day. If he does not have Boulez’s radical background - his antecedents are Ravel and Bartók rather than Messiaen and Webern - he is neither unoriginal nor unadventurous. Indeed, the older he gets the more liberated he becomes, particularly in structural matters.

Dutilleux’s mature dislike of predetermined forms is clear enough in the String Quartet he completed for the Juilliard Quartet in 1976. Never having written a string quartet before, he began by sending the Juilliards a series of unrelated studies so that they could get used to his writing. Over a period of six years he devised ways of linking these pieces in a complex network of variation, memory and anticipation to create a structure which, though minutely worked out, seems entirely spontaneous. The four linking sections are presented as Parenthèses while each of the seven main movements bears a heading more or less vaguely in keeping with the poetic title of the whole work. As the composer has described it, Ainsi la nuit (Thus the night) is “a sort of nocturnal vision…a series of ‘states’ with a somewhat impressionist side to them.”

The work is scored in such an elusive way that only a very exceptional ear could follow even a proportion of the thematic allusions and cross-references. But one item that does immediately impress itself on the memory is the eight-note chord, swelling up from ppp and down again, which is heard at the very beginning of the short introduction. That chord echoes through the first Nocturne and is the source of the opening theme of first Litanies. Parenthèse 4, which is almost a recapitulation of the introduction, offers an emphatic reminder of the basic material before the last three movements succeed each other without the benefit of links - ending with Temps suspendu, which opens with several references to the chordal motif and conclusively descends on it in the final bars.

Introduction – 1    Nocturne –

Parenthèse 1 – II    Miroir d’espace –

Parenthèse 2 – III Litanies

Parenthèse 3 – IV Litanies 2 –

Parenthèse 4 – V      Constellations –

VI    Nocturne 2 –

VII Temps suspendu

Henri Dutilleux was, with Pierre Boulez, one of the two leading French composers round the turn of the present century. If he did not have Boulez’s radical background – his antecedents are Ravel and Bartók rather than Messiaen and Webern – he was neither unoriginal nor unadventurous. Indeed, the older he got the more liberated he became, particularly in structural matters.

Dutilleux’s mature dislike of predetermined forms is clear enough in the String Quartet he completed for the Juilliard Quartet in 1976. Never having written a string quartet before, he began by sending the Juilliards a series of unrelated studies so that they could get used to his writing. Over a period of six years he devised ways of linking these pieces in a complex network of variation, memory and anticipation to create a structure which, though minutely worked out, seems entirely spontaneous. The four linking sections are presented as Parenthèses while each of the seven main movements bears a heading more or less vaguely in keeping with the poetic title of the whole work. As the composer has described it, Ainsi la nuit (Thus the night) is “a sort of nocturnal vision…a series of ‘states’ with a somewhat impressionist side to them.”

The work is scored in such an elusive way that only a very exceptional ear could follow even a proportion of the thematic allusions and cross-references. But one item that does immediately impress itself on the memory is the eight-note chord, swelling up from ppp and down again, which is heard at the very beginning of the short introduction. That chord echoes through the first Nocturne and is the source of the opening theme of first Litanies. Parenthèse 4, which is almost a recapitulation of the introduction, offers an emphatic reminder of the basic material before the last three movements succeed each other without the benefit of links – ending with Temps suspendu, which opens with several references to the chordal motif and conclusively descends on it in the final bars.

Introduction – 1    Nocturne –

Parenthèse 1 – II    Miroir d’espace –

Parenthèse 2 – III Litanies

Parenthèse 3 – IV Litanies 2 –

Parenthèse 4 – V      Constellations –

VI    Nocturne 2 –

VII Temps suspendu

Henri Dutilleux was, with Pierre Boulez, one of the two leading French composers round the turn of the present century. If he did not have Boulez’s radical background – his antecedents are Ravel and Bartók rather than Messiaen and Webern – he was neither unoriginal nor unadventurous. Indeed, the older he got the more liberated he became, particularly in structural matters.

Dutilleux’s mature dislike of predetermined forms is clear enough in the String Quartet he completed for the Juilliard Quartet in 1976. Never having written a string quartet before, he began by sending the Juilliards a series of unrelated studies so that they could get used to his writing. Over a period of six years he devised ways of linking these pieces in a complex network of variation, memory and anticipation to create a structure which, though minutely worked out, seems entirely spontaneous. The four linking sections are presented as Parenthèses while each of the seven main movements bears a heading more or less vaguely in keeping with the poetic title of the whole work. As the composer has described it, Ainsi la nuit (Thus the night) is “a sort of nocturnal vision…a series of ‘states’ with a somewhat impressionist side to them.”

The work is scored in such an elusive way that only a very exceptional ear could follow even a proportion of the thematic allusions and cross-references. But one item that does immediately impress itself on the memory is the eight-note chord, swelling up from ppp and down again, which is heard at the very beginning and twice more during the course of the very short introduction. That chord echoes through the first Nocturne and is the source of the opening theme of first Litanies, a comparatively extended movement shaped like a rondo where the opening theme, derived from the basic chordal motif, plainly recurs three times and less plainly many more times.

Although Ainsi la nuit is supposed to be played virtually without a break, the composer does recommend a significant pause between Litanies and the spectral Parenthèse 3. Parenthèse 4, which is almost a recapitulation of the introduction, offers an emphatic reminder of the basic material before the last three movements succeed each other without the benefit of links between them – Constellations with its intermittently eloquent cello line and its swooping glissandi, Nocturne 2 with highly mobile and increasingly louder night-music colours, and ending with Temps suspendu, which opens with several references to the chordal motif and conclusively descends on it in the final bars.

Introduction - I Nocturne -

Parenthèse 1 - II Miroir d’espace -

Parenthèse 2 - III Litanies

Parenthèse 3 - IV Litanies 2 -

Parenthèse 4 - V Constellations -

VI    Nocturne 2 -

VII Temps suspendu

Henri Dutilleux is, with Pierre Boulez, one of the two most distinguished French composers of the day. If he does not have Boulez’s radical background – his antecedents are Ravel and Bartok rather than Messiaen and Webern – he is neither unoriginal nor unadventurous. He has written works in conventional forms, like the Piano Sonata and the two Symphonies, but has never ceased to develop his own creative personality and has become more and more liberated, particularly in structural matters, as he has grown older.

Dutilleux’s mature dislike of predetermined forms is clear enough in the String Quartet he wrote for the Juilliard Quartet in the 1970s. He accepted the commission from the Koussevitsky Foundation in 1971 and, never having written a string quartet before, he began by sending the Juilliards a series of unrelated sketches or studies so that they could get used to his writing. Over a period of six years he devised ways of linking these separate pieces in a complex network of variation, memory and anticipation to complete a structure which, though minutely worked out, seems entirely spontaneous. In the finished score the four linking sections are presented as Parenthèses while each of the seven main movements bears a heading more or less vaguely in keeping with the poetic title of the whole work. As the composer has described it, Ainsi la nuit (Thus the night) is “a sort of nocturnal vision…a series of ‘states’ with a somewhat impressionist side to them.”

The work is scored in such an elusive way that only a very exceptional ear could follow even a proportion of the thematic allusions and cross-references. But one item that does immediately impress itself on the memory is the eight-note chord, swelling up from ppp and down again, which is heard at the very beginning and twice more during the course of the very short introduction. That chord echoes through the first Nocturne –most clearly on ff pizzicato cello shortly before the viola, accompanied by night-music sounds on the other instruments, introduces the first extended melody so far. As the texture fragments again, Parenthèse 1 briefly intervenes both to look back and to introduce Miroir d’espace, where “space” is suggested by the distance between the high-lying violin line and the mirror counterpoint whispered on the cello octaves below. Parenthèse 2 attractively anticipates a melody that is about to emerge in the first Litanies, a comparatively extended movement shaped like a rondo where the opening theme, derived from the basic chordal motif, plainly recurs three times and less plainly many more times.

Although Ainsi la nuit is supposed to be played virtually without a break, the composer does recommend a significant pause between Litanies and the spectral Parenthèse 3. Litanies 2 is another development of the theme anticipated in Parenthèse 2, departing from the melodic unison of viola and cello in the opening bars into highly coloured textural abstractions and gentle reminders of the chordal motif. Parenthèse 4, which is almost a recapitulation of the introduction, is an emphatic reminder of the basic material before the last three movements succeed each other without the benefit of links between them – Constellations with its intermittently eloquent cello line and its swooping glissandi, Nocturne 2 with highly mobile and increasingly louder night-music colours, and Temps suspendu, which opens with several references to the chordal motif, refers back to Nocturne 1 and, though it twice threatens to stop in mid-flight, descends heavily onto the basic material in the final bars.