String Quartet in E flat major, Op.51 [1879]

The Quartet in E flat was written in 1879 for Jean Becker, leader of the Florentine Quartet, who had asked the composer for a score that would be specifically “Slavonic” in character. He probably wanted something like the recent Sextet in A major Op.48, which has a dumka in the place of the conventional slow movement and a furiant instead of a scherzo. Dvorak, who was enjoying the extraordinary success of his first set of Slavonic Dances at the time, was happy to comply.

Nothing could be more seductive than the opening of the first movement with its gently rocking E flat major arpeggios and the melody that almost imperceptibly emerges out of them on first violin. Actually, that first theme is little more than an arpeggio and a four-note cadence figure with an attractive folk-dance skip in it. The cadence figure goes on skipping through much of the rest of the movement. It supplies the more purposeful material that leads to the entry of the melodious second subject and it is a prominent feature in the development. The second subject is recapitulated first, now with the skipping figure on viola or cello beneath it, and when the first subject finally is recalled it is with that same pervasive figure integrated into the texture round it.

Not quite sure himself what a dumka was, Dvorak clearly thought it wise to explain the Slavonic title of the second movement by adding “Elégie” as a subtitle. As he knew, however, there is more to a dumka than that. The elegiac melody introduced on first violin and glumly echoed by viola over strummed G minor harmonies on the cello is certainly characteristic dumka material. But another characteristic of the dumka is the direct contrast in mood and tempo represented here by a vigorous furiant episode based on a G major variant of the main theme. The later recall of the furiant theme in G minor reduces its cheerfulness but not its vigour.

There is no such interruption to the nocturnal atmosphere of the Romance in B flat major. Based on an intimately tender melody introduced pianissimo and in close harmony by the two violins and the viola, the most idiomatically Slavonic element in it is another cadence figure. While it has a curiously hypnotic effect in its many repetitions, it is more posiitive in motivating the development and, lingeringly, it closes the movement too.

The main theme of the Finale is a skocna. A brilliant dance tune in E flat major with a characteristic syncopation in its step, it is most resourcefully worked into a kind of sonata-rondo construction. Dvorak is particularly ingenious in introducing a contrapuntal episode quite naturally into the development and particularly witty in his teasing pauses before the last return of the skocna in its original form. The coda takes off at a reckless and highly effective thematic tangent.

The Quartet in E flat was written in 1879 for Jean Becker, leader of the Florentine Quartet, who had asked the composer for a score that would be specifically “Slavonic” in character. He probably wanted something like the recent Sextet in A major, Op.48, which has a dumka in the place of the conventional slow movement and a furiant instead of a scherzo. Dvorak, who was enjoying the extraordinary success of his first set of Slavonic Dances at the time, was happy to comply. In just over three months he completed what was to become one of the most popular of all his string quartets.

Nothing could be more seductive than the opening of the first movement with its gently rocking E flat major arpeggios and the melody that almost imperceptibly emerges out of them on first violin. Actually, that first theme is little more than an arpeggio and a four-note cadence figure but it has such an attractive folk-dance skip in it that Dvorak cannot resist it. The cadence figure goes on skipping through much of the rest of the movement. It supplies the more purposeful material that leads to the entry of the melodious second subject on viola and a few bars after that it returns to perform a kind of polka high on first violin as a counterpoint to a repeat of the new melody on second violin and viola. It is a prominent feature in the development too, not least where the cello takes it up to introduce an eerily whispered chorale version of the first subject in remote A major. The second subject is recapitulated first, now with the skipping figure on viola or cello beneath it, and when the first subject finally is recalled it is with that same pervasive figure integrated into the texture round it.

Not quite sure himself what a dumka was, Dvorak clearly thought it wise to explain the Slavonic title of the second movement by adding the French word “Elegie” (apparently without the accents) as a subtitle. As he knew, however, there is more to a dumka than that. The elegiac melody introduced on first violin and glumly echoed by viola over strummed G minor harmonies on the cello is certainly authentic. But, as Dvorak knew, another characteristic of the dumka is the direct contrast in mood and tempo represented here by a vigorous furiant episode based on a G major variant of the main theme. The later recall of the furiant theme in G minor reduces its cheerfulness but not its vigour.

There is no such interruption to the nocturnal atmosphere of the Romance in B flat major. Based on an intimately tender melody introduced pianissimo and in close harmony by the two violins and the viola, the most idiomatically Slavonic element in it is another cadence figure. This one, which is apparently vocal rather than instrumental in origin, has a curiously hypnotic effect in its many repetitions. More positively, it motivates the development and, lingeringly, it closes the movement too.

The main theme of the Finale is a skocna. A brilliant dance tune in E flat major with a characteristic syncopation in its step, it is most resourcefully worked into a kind of sonata-rondo construction. Dvorak is particularly ingenious in introducing a contrapuntal episode quite naturally into the development and particularly witty in his teasing pauses before the last return of the skocna in its original form. The coda takes off at a reckless and highly effective thematic tangent.