String Quartet No.7 – Concerto da camera (1947)

One of the more egregious of the many uncomprehending comments made on Martinu’s Seventh String Quartet is that it sounds like Dvorák – a comparison which makes sense only if it is based on the assumption that music by one homesick Czech composer exiled in America in his fifties is bound to sound like that of another Czech composer in the same situation. In fact, while Dvorák might recognise allusions to the Czech idiom in the last movement, he would understand little or nothing of the Martinu’s Seventh Quartet. He would be baffled by its harmonies, its structure and even by its scoring which, though brilliantly accomplished, is strenuous to an extreme.

One clue to the true nature of the work is in its subtitle Concerto da Camera (chamber concerto). It is not the kind of concerto that makes a feature of individual virtuosity but a sort of concerto grosso, which is based on changes of texture. The opening Poco allegro, a contrapuntal inspiration impelled by a Bach-like rhythmic momentum, is actually constructed like a concerto grosso movement. Its ritornello element, which consists not only of the opening theme in staccato semiquavers but also of its extension in legato quavers, returns in full only once, however – in the middle of the movement. In the episodes on either side of it Martinu presents an extraordinary, even bewildering variety of rhythmic, melodic and textural ideas. The movement ends with an abbreviated recall of the ritornello.

The central Andante is written in genuine four-part counterpoint almost throughout – a rare phenomenon in the string quartet, where it is restricted largely to fugal passages. While this is not a fugue, it is more likely to call Beethoven’s Op.131 to mind than anything by Dvorák. Once again the opening material is recalled at a central point, this time just after the texture all but disentegrates in two-note fragments. The one instrumental solo, for cello accompanied by decorative figures on the other instruments, occurs in the closing episode.   

Though constructed in much the same way, the closing Allegro vivo comes rather closer to Dvorák and the Czech country dance in its joyful celebration of ensemble virtuosity.