Three movements from Five Pieces for String Quartet

Erwin Schulhoff - whose genius was saluted in his boyhood by Dvorák and extinguished in his middle age by tuberculosis in a Bavarian concentration camp - was one of Czechoslovakia’s great originals. The central experience of his life was his four years service in the First World War, the horrors of which shattered his late-romantic certainties and scattered his creativity in a variety of stylistic directions. Viennese expressionism, dadaism, jazz, Janácek, socialist realism, all offered him a congenial home at one time or another, the last producing a monumental oratorio setting of the Communist Manifesto.

A consistent Schulhoff feature, however, is a keen interest in popular dance forms, the choice of material depending to some extent on the trends of the day. Written in 1923 and dedicated to Darius Milhaud, the Five Pieces for String Quartet invites comparison in its treatment of its four dances (waltz, tarantella and, omitted on this occasion, polka and tango) with the work of the Parisian “Groupe des Six” and thrives on it. The ironically titled Alla Valse Viennese wittily sets its waltz in a 4/4 time context. Alla Serenata, which claims no dance in its title but presents hints of more than a few in its rhythms, is a little comedy ending with the disappearance of its central character in ghostly col legno and sul ponticello articulation. A brilliant example of Schulhoff’s scoring for strings, the Tarantella might sound more Czech than Italian here and there but is no less entertaining for that.