String Quartet in G major, Op.106

Dvorak too found inspiration in his emotional life, though with rather more discretion and very much more moderation. The stimulus behind his last two quartets, both of them completed in Prague shortly after his return from the New World in 1895, could be nothing more than the spontaneous creativity of a composer with an inexhaustible supply of melody and such easy technical mastery that the structures seem to grow out of the natural impulse of the themes themselves. On the other hand, the way the amorous second subject of the first movement, tenderly introduced by the first violin, reappears in the finale suggests that there may be more to the work than purely musical considerations.

Dvorak’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, after resting for a while at home in Prague, he put it aside in favour of the Quartet in G major Op.106, which was actually finished first. Both works are written with the effortless mastery of a composer at ease not only with his technique but also with his inspiration: 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, adapts itself and emerges in a dynamic new form which is now presented - in passionate tones on the two violins over the downward flourish on the viola and G major arpeggios on the cello - 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.

Inevitably, bearing in mind its more assertive character, the dynamic main theme dominates the development section. It does, however, meet with some determined opposition from the once innocuous two-note greeting and the downward flourish which actually succeed in persuading it to give way, in a touchingly intimate little episode in the very centre of the movement, to a whispered memory of the amorous second subject. The main theme is omitted from the recapitulation not to silence it but, on the contrary, to hold it in reserve for the dramatic and emphatically conclusive ending.

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. Among its more vivid transformations are an at first hushed and then suddenly passionate allusion in E flat minor on second violin, a tragic variation in F sharp minor for first violin followed by cello, and a stirringly grandiose version in multi-stopped C major harmonies on all four instruments at the loudest end of their dynamic range. Although the melody retains its nostalgia to the end of the movement, it is eventually relieved of its minor-key melancholy.

Like many of Dvorak’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 first introduced by an expressively supple viola and fluctuating intriguingly between triple and duple rhythms, the second opening in disarmingly simple harmonies on the two violins over a drone accompaniment on viola and cello.

The last movement is no ordinary Dvorak 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, offering a preliminary outline of the main theme that is to follow, 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. It might not be as thorough as the long-term integration achieved in the last movement of the “New World” Symphony but it is certainly impressive in a chamber-music context.

Gerald Larner©