Three Madrigals for violin and viola (1948)

One of the major influences on Martinu’s music was the English Renaissance madrigal. He was attracted to it, he said, “by its freedom of polyphony, which I found very different from that of Bach.” The presence in the Martinu work list of six scores with “madrigal” in the title – two vocal and four instrumental – certainly signals his interest in the form. On closer examination, however, it is questionable how far the interest goes. While some of the instrumental madrigals confirm his attraction to the polyphonic aspect – particularly the Four Madrigals (for oboe, clarinet and bassoon) of 1937 and the Madrigal Sonata (for flute, violin and piano) of 1942 – others do not. In the present Three Madrigals, masterfully scored for violin and viola though they are, there is comparatively little polyphony and much of what there is sounds not so very different from that of Bach.

The most prominent textural feature of the opening section of the Poco allegro is a vigorously bowed rhythmic ostinato, which is relieved by short melodic phrases passing from one instrument to the other or which acts as an accompaniment to a more sustained line above it. The ostinato is dropped for a while in the middle section, but to make way for more exchanges rather than consistent counterpoint. On its return, however, it provokes a melodic flowering which, though only briefly contrapuntal, has a more than compensatory radiance about it. The Poco andante replaces the ostinato with a muted tremolando which – gentle sonority though it is in a movement remarkable for its instrumental colouring – seems to be as effective as the ostinato in inhibiting linear development. But then, towards the end, melody breaks free again, and in a genuine two-part texture in this case. The baroque rather than Renaissance polyphony in the closing Allegro is clearly the result of a deliberate stylistic choice on Martinu’s part. Indeed, the unmistakable allusions to familiar Bach motifs suggest that – except in the slower two-part polyphony of the middle section – he had some kind of pastiche mind. Certainly, it is brilliantly and wittily done.

The Three Madrigals were written for Lilian and Joseph Fuchs, who gave the first performance in New York in December 1947. Three years later Martinu wrote another piece for the same sibling instrumentalists, this one simply entitled Duo.