String Quartet in G major, Op.106

Dvorák’s last two string quartets were completed within a few months of his return to Czechoslovakia from the New World in April 1895. He had actually started on the one in A flat major Op.105 in New York but he put it aside in favour of the Quartet in G major Op.106, which was actually finished first. As both works demonstrate, he still had an inexhaustible supply of melody and all he had to do, it seems, was to liberate it and then to define, rather than design, the structures suggested by the natural impulse of the themes themselves.

The exposition of the opening Allegro moderato of the Quartet in G major is a fascinating example of the spontaneous generation of one idea from another. It begins with nothing more remarkable than a cheerful gesture, a repeated two-note greeting, followed by a modest downward flourish on first violin. It imposes itself even so, examines itself and emerges in a dynamic new form which is now presented on the two violins as the main theme of the movement. The contrastingly lyrical second subject takes shape from the foregoing by means of a similar process to be definitively introduced, after several little anticipations, by a tenderly amorous first violin.

The opening theme of the Adagio ma non troppo is so beautiful and so disturbingly ambiguous in its emotional implications that it motivates the whole movement. Introduced by first violin in E flat major after introductory anticipations of both its melodic shape and its tendency to equivocate between minor and major harmonies, it inspires a whole series of variations - not in any formal or predictable way but always quite spontaneously and always in new, lavishly applied instrumental colouring.

Like many of Dvorák’s scherzos, the third movement rejoices in Czech folk-dance rhythms but is more generous than most in that, after the Schumann model, it offers not one but two melodious trio sections to contrast with the prevailing vigour.

The last movement is no ordinary Dvorák finale either. Like many of its kind, it is a rondo construction based on Czech folk material but, while fulfilling its expected celebratory role with all due exhilaration, it has another, more serious function to perform. The fact that it doesn’t immediately burst into Allegro con fuoco life but begins with a short Andante sostenuto is a small but significant indication that this could be a finale with a difference. Sure enough, the Andante sostenuto material reappears to halt the so far headlong progress of the rondo and to prepare the way for memories not only of the amorous second subject of the first movement but also the two-note greeting and flourish from the very start of the work.

Gerald Larner ©2004