By Melvin Berger from "Guide to Chamber Music"
Publisher/Anchor- Doubleday

Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 125, No. 1, D. 87
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Nicknamed the “Haushaltung Quartett” (“Household Quartet”) because it is so well suited for home performance, the E-Flat quartet was composed as Schubert was completing his studies at the Imperial and Royal State School. It is the last of six comparatively immature works that the teenaged composer wrote for his family quartet.  Pleasant in tone, the quartets are characterized by a “touch of Biedermeier,” the solid, comfortable, rather humdrum design character so favored by the German and Austrian bourgeois in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Technically they are quite undemanding because of the limited performing abilities of the four players, particularly Schubert’s father.

The E-Flat quartet, by far the best of the six, was composed in November 1813 and published posthumously in 1830, as Op. 125, No. 1.  It is the only one of these early works to have found a place in the modern repertoire as a pleasant, agreeable piece showing evidence of Schubert’s mature quartet style.

 The principal subject group of the genial and warm first movement has three amiable motifs, all introduced by the first violin. A two-measure bridge of repeated syncopations in the viola leads to the second theme, not much different in character, but in the dominant (B-Flat Major) key. The concluding theme, heard over an ongoing dotted-note (long-short) accompaniment, is closely related to the last of the first subject themes. The development and recapitulation sections are concerned with this melodic material and maintain the same comfortable, gemütlich tone to the end.

The high-speed Scherzo whizzes by, a fun movement, full of wit and humor. The basic melodic and rhythmic figure is a quick grace note followed by a downward plunge.  After dashing through this section with great verve, Schubert presents the trio, a short contrasting legato interlude that sounds folk-like in origin. Then the Scherzo returns for a full-length repeat.

The Adagio casts a mood similar to that of the first movement and, like the Allegro moderato, is organized in sonata form. All four players join in presenting the first theme at the very opening. The first violin then states the second theme against a throbbing background. A short development section carries the music back to a restatement of the themes from the exposition, and the movement ends quietly without a coda.

Written with great flair and assurance, the bright, scintillating last movement is generally considered the high point of the quartet. The first theme consists of two delicate ascending staccato phrases with a series of three accented descending legato phrases that are truly captivating in style. After extending this idea, Schubert introduces the ingratiating second theme, played by the first violin over a brittle staccato accompaniment. A forceful unison starts the development section, which continues alternating loud and soft, until a regular recapitulation and short coda end this delightful movement.

Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 74, "Harp"
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Several important events occurred during 1809, while Beethoven was composing his E-Flat Major quartet. Early in the year he was granted an annual stipend from three noblemen. With this financial security, Beethoven proposed marriage to Therese Malfatti, his teenaged pupil, and was devastated by her family's rejection of his suit. The French army attacked Vienna in May, bombarding and laying siege to the city (the account of Beethoven cowering in a cellar during the shelling, pillow clamped over his ears to save his little remaining hearing, dates from this time), followed by an occupation that lasted until October. During the military seizure, Louis de Vienny, a French music lover, called on Beethoven and left this description of the composer's living quarters:

His lodging, I believe, consisted of only two rooms, the first one having an alcove containing the bed, but small and dark, for which reason he made his toilet in the second room, or salon. Picture yourself in the dirtiest, most disorderly place imaginable--blotches of moisture covered the ceiling; an oldish grand piano, on which the dust disputed the place with various pieces of engraved and manuscript music; under the piano (I do not exaggerate) an unemptied pot de nuit; beside it, a small walnut table accustomed to the frequent overturning of the secretary placed upon it; a quantity of pens encrusted with ink, compared wherewith the proverbial tavern pens would shine; then more music. The chairs, mostly cane seated, were covered with plates bearing the remains of last night's supper, and with wearing apparel . . .

No one can say exactly how the personal and political turmoil and the squalor of his surroundings affected the composition of the Op. 74 quartet, but it is known from his letters that Beethoven found it difficult to compose under wartime conditions; the thirty notebook pages devoted to working out the quartet attest to his struggles. Also, the quartet does not push forward into new and unexplored regions, but rather demonstrates a consolidation of previous growth, with some backward glances over well-traveled Classical pathways.

Although widely accepted, the subtitle, "Harp", was not devised by Beethoven but was added later. It is an unfortunate choice of name, since it calls undue attention to some pizzicato accompaniment figures in the first movement that are of minor musical importance, even though they probably shocked listeners in the early 1800s.

The slow introduction to the first movement centers around a four-note motif heard immediately from the first violin and repeated a number of times. Twice Beethoven interrupts the placid flow with a powerful chord before continuing in unruffled tranquillity. The top notes of the three sharp chords that open the main body of the movement follow the same general contour as the introductory motif. Two other melodic fragments—a flowing line in the second violin and a cantabile melody in the first—fill out the first group. The transition to the second group includes the first appearance of the pizzicato figure that gives the quartet its nickname and of forceful chords reminiscent of the introduction. The viola introduces the second theme, a long note followed by a flurry of descending and ascending notes, but is soon joined in imitation by all the instruments. A closing theme, with jarring offbeat accents, brings the exposition to a close. The development features a forceful modulation to C Major and dramatic opposition of pairs of instruments (outer vs. inner voices).

The transition to the recapitulation makes much of the pizzicato idea (which is itself derived from the opening triadic motive of the Allegro). The coda is particularly striking with brilliant passage work in the first violin and expansion by the others of pizzicato arpeggios and melodic fragments heard earlier.

The Adagio, a movement of profound spirituality, foreshadows Beethoven's sublime late quartets. The superb, though simple, melodies convey great richness of emotional content. The movement revolves almost entirely around the tender, almost sentimental main theme initially stated by the first violin, which is heard three times in varied repetitions separated by contrasting episodes--the first repeat in minor, conveying a weighty despondency, the second, loftier and more spiritual.

The concentrated energy and drive of the third movement, really a scherzo, makes this the climax of the entire quartet. Still obsessed with the dot-dot-dot-dash rhythm of his Fifth Symphony from one year earlier, Beethoven gives this movement a power and force that is rare in chamber music. Nor is there any relaxation in the following section, introduced by the cello. Beethoven marks it Più presto ("faster"), but contradicts himself by giving it the same metronome setting as the opening, in what some say is a parody of academic counterpoint exercises. Both parts are repeated before a third hearing of the opening, hushed in tone, acts as a transition to the last movement, which follows without pause.

The disarming finale, with its simple drooping tune, seems almost anticlimactic after the furious third movement. Its form is a theme and six variations, in which variations 1, 3 and 5 are strong and active, while numbers 2, 4 and 6 are gentle and lyrical. The coda accelerates in tempo, leading to a high-speed, brilliant conclusion based on the melodic line of the third variation.

Quartet No. 9 in E-Flat Major, Op. 117
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
By Paul Epstein

Written in 1964, and dedicated to his young new wife Irina Supinskaya.

From its mysterious opening to its heroic ending, the monumental Ninth Quartet progresses in what feels like one uninterrupted gesture. Themes grow one out of another, appearing at crucial moments throughout all five interconnected movements which develop in patterns now standard for Shostakovich’s quartets.

The first movement is in his characteristic abbreviated sonata form. In the second movement—the first of two adagio dialogues of operatic intensity—a somberly expressive viola melody is answered by a long, rhapsodic violin solo. The central third movement is a scherzo whose arch-like shape (ABCBA) mirrors the overall form of the quartet. At the return of the A section an eerie foreshadowing of the next movement’s theme is heard floating in slow motion over a recap of the bouncy opening material. Developed from material we have already heard, this theme has the feeling of both echo and anticipation. The following movement begins with a psalmodic theme owing more than a little to Mussorgsky, a composer to whom Shostakovich felt extremely close. The gigantic finale seems at first like a scherzo in standard ABA form. (The B section uses a roughed-up version of the “Mussorgsky” melody.) The second A section evolves into a wildly complex fugue whose subject synthesizes all the quartet’s melodies. A giant, thwacking, pizzicato version of the psalmodic theme introduces an enormous coda, in which all of the quartet’s elements are swept in waves towards an ecstatic conclusion.