Meditation on an old Czech hymn, “St Wenceslas,” Op.35

Although he was a member of the Czech Quartet for more than forty years – he was its second violin from his last year at the Prague Conservatoire in 1891 until his retirement in 1933 – Suk wrote little for string quartet and not much more for chamber ensemble of any kind. Encouraged by the early success of his Serenade for strings, he was always more interested in orchestral music and, after the traumatic experience of losing his wife, Dvorák’s daughter Otylka, to tuberculosis in 1905, he devoted his creative energies almost exclusively to a cycle of seriously large-scale symphonic works – the Asrael Symphony, A Summer’s Tale, The Ripening, and Epilogue.    The Meditation on an old Czech Hymn, “St Wenceslas,” his third and last work for string quartet, was written only because of the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, which put a stop to the Czech Quartet’s touring activities and kept it at home in Prague.

The nearest relation to Josef Suk’s Meditation is Samuel Barber’s Adagio, another contrapuntal development of modal melody written originally for string quartet and later arranged for string orchestra. But whereas there is something slightly synthetic about the Barber Adagio, the Suk Meditation grew naturally and directly from the war-time circumstances in which it was written. In turning to one of the oldest of Czech hymns – which culminates in a supplication to the nation’s patron saint to “Preserve us and preserve our descendants” – Suk no doubt reflected the feelings of the majority of his compatriots at the time. For Suk the most significant part of the theme is the phrase which is presented by muted viola in the opening bars and which retains its distinctive profile while the “St Wenceslas” chorale itself – introduced by violin and cello in canon – passes through a variety of transformations. The phrygian modality of the theme, which gives much of the work an A-minor kind of feeling, resolves into a radiant A major at the end.

Gerald Larner © 2011

Meditation on the old Czech hymn “St Wenceslas” Op.35 (1914)

Sylvie Bodorová (b 1954)

String Quartet No. 1 Dignitas homini (1987)

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

String Quartet No 2 in F major Op 92 (1941)

Allegro sostenuto

Adagio - poco più animato - poco meno

Allegro - andante molto - allegro

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

String Quintet in C major Op.163, D.956 (1828)

Allegro ma non troppo

Adagio

Scherzo: presto - Trio: andante sostenuto - Scherzo

Allegretto - più allegro - più presto

Although Josef Suk - Dvorák’s favourite pupil and son-in-law - was a member of the Czech Quartet for more than forty years, he wrote little chamber music. The Meditation on the old Czech Hymn “St Wenceslas,” his third and last work for string quartet, was written only because of the outbreak of war in 1914, which put a stop to touring and kept him at home in Prague. Its nearest relation in the repertoire is Samuel Barber’s Adagio, another contrapuntal contemplation of modal melody, although Suk’s Meditation has a spiritual urgency to it. In turning to one of the oldest of Czech hymns - which culminates in a supplication to the nation’s patron saint to “preserve us and preserve our descendants” - Suk no doubt reflected the feelings of the majority of his compatriots at the time.

Sylvie Bodorová’s First String Quartet is another Czech composer’s reaction to an unhappy political situation - although in this case, in the last few years of the Communist regime, it was nowhere as distressing. Subtitled Dignitas homini, it is said to be “a meditation on the interplay between true humanity and artificial, inhuman constraint.” In a single movement (lasting about 12 movements) it opposes two contrasting ideas and ends with an aspiring example of the lyrical sonority apparently characteristic of Bodorová’s work in general.

Had he not been evacuated to Nalchik in the Caucasus - to get him out of the way of the German army advancing on Moscow in 1941 - Prokofiev would probably never have come across Kabardinian folk culture. He was so fascinated by what he heard there that he based his Second String Quartet exclusively on local folk tunes, beginning with an Allegro sostenuto where he makes no attempt to disguise the primitive quality of his three main themes. The material of the second movement is rather more engagingly presented - a Kabardinian love song introduced by the cello and, in the middle section, a charmingly scored Caucasian dance tune. The folk dance that opens the last movement was chosen, presumably, because of the phrase it so prominently has in common with the main theme of the first movement. Certainly, its distinctive rhythms perform a valuable function in holding together not only a rondo construction dangerously expanded by a dramatic cello cadenza but the whole three-movement construction.

The second of six works for string quartet and another instrument to be heard in this year’s festival, Schubert’s String Quintet in C major is thought by many to be be the greatest example of its kind. Why he chose to add a second cello, rather than a second viola like Mozart, we do not know but that is its most distinctive and most formative feature. The surge of cello sound produced by the pair of them just after the introduction and their fond counterpoint on their respective A-strings when they come to the melodious second subject are just two texturally inspired moments in the opening Allegro. The slow movement is similarly resourceful in this respect, above all in the outer sections where three voices sustain the rapturous melodic interest in the middle of the texture while first violin and pizzicato second cello exchange harmonic comments from above and below. Although the cellos continue to act together in the Scherzo, the scoring here is more remarkable for their relationship with the viola. As for the Allegretto last movement, while its main dance-tune material does not encourage much in the way of textural enterprise, there are two episodes where a cello duet recalls the first movement as a distant but touching memory.