1 Krenek: Jonny spielt auf 00.55

3 Beethoven: A minor Op.132 00.51

4 Krenek: String Quartet 1/1 02.29

5 Krenek: String Quartet 1/2 00.37

6 Krenek: String Quartet 1/4 00.40

7 Krenek: String Quartet 1/7 00.42

String quartet No.1 Op.6

What I am trying to do is to demonstrate that, though it is not an easy ride, the First String Quartet does have its roots in tradition. Texturally and structurally complex though it is - eight mainly contrapuntal movements played without a break - it is illuminated by Krenek’s widespread use of the BACH motif - B flat, A, C, B natural - used by Bach himself in his Art of Fugue and thereafter by many composers, notably Schumann and Liszt.

2 Bach: Art of Fugue 01.05

This is how it appears in The Art of Fugue when it makes its first entry as a counter-subject in the last (incomplete) fugue. It is by no means the ony source of melodic material, not the only line that is treated in a kind of serial manner to generate new ideas, but it is the most recognisable.

Another source of inspiration is late Beethoven, including the Grosse Fuge and, another work which uses four notes as a kind of motto, Op.132. This is how it begins.

3 Beethoven: Op.132 00.51

This is how Krenek’s First String Quartet begins, not with the same four notes and not with BACH either but with the same idea of a contrapuntal rising up through the texture from the cello. This is quite a long extract because I want to include not only the beginning but also the first entries of the BACH motif - though not always in the authentic form, since Krenek likes to alter the intervals sometimes - and the change of tempo to a quicker movement which, in its percussive dotted rhythms, seems to echo the Grosse Fuge

4 Krenek: String Quartet 1/1 02.29

Here are some more transformations of the BACH motif in the second movement including some phrases in very high registers on all four instruments towards the end of the extract.

5 Krenek: String Quartet 1/2 00.37

This next extract from the fourth movement. It includes a BACH phrase towards the end but is chosen to illustrate how much of his time Krenek was in 1921, echoing Bartok perhaps but anticipating Shostakovich

6 Krenek: String Quartet 1/4 00.40

The last extact is from the seventh movement, the climax of the work following a very short sixth and preceding a kind of epilogue in the eighth movement. It begins where the BACH motif enters to join a fugue subject already introduced and to initiate a vigorous double fugue.

7 Krenek: String Quartet 1/7 00.42

Unfortunately, I cannot play anything from the last movement because it is omitted from the advance copy I have been sent of the Petersen’s Quartet’s recordings of String Quartet No.1 and String Quartet No.7 . I am, however, very grateful to their agent Simmenauer for getting hold of it for me.