Understanding of Structure

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-132
Author(s):  
Daphne Leong
Keyword(s):  
String Quartet ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
String Quartets ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
Written Text ◽  
Rhythmic Performance ◽  
Recorded Performances ◽  
Video Interview

The meters of the trio at the center of Bartók’s Fifth String Quartet scherzo are (3 + 2 + 2 + 3) / 8, (2 + 3 + 2 + 3) / 8, and (2 + 3 + 3 + 2) / 8. Well-known string quartets differ greatly in their interpretations of these meters, with rhythmic performance ranging from accented and angular to lyrical and flexible. What are the main differences in rhythmic interpretation, and what might explain them? This chapter explores the structure of the trio’s melodies in relation to Bartók’s writings on folk music (Hungarian folk song and Bulgarian meter), and examines ten recordings of the trio empirically. It concludes that the most significant distinctions in interpretation of the trio’s rhythms link to a folk-song-like understanding of its melodies, and that Bartók’s coaching influence coincides with such understanding. Bartók’s instructions to the Kolisch Quartet on the performance of the trio’s rhythms, and Bartók’s own recorded performances of similar rhythms, are examined. A performers’ guide and video interview with András Fejér of the Takács Quartet provide practical interpretive resources. Audio examples complement the written text.

Ernest Bloch's Second String Quartet

Tempo ◽  
1959 ◽  
pp. 11-16
Author(s):  
Frederick Rimmer
Keyword(s):  
String Quartet ◽  
String Quartets ◽  
The Other ◽  
Sonata Form ◽  
Musical Expression ◽  
The Right

The four string quartets* of Bloch are a convenient medium for assessing both the strength and weakness of his unusual talent, revealing, as they do, an imperfect endowment of those processes of thought and feeling from which, in the right amalgam, a masterpiece of musical expression can emerge. Only the second quartet represents him at his best. It is one of the few works where inspiration and emotion are under the control of the intellect. There are weaknesses in the other quartets largely brought about by preoccupation with cyclic procedures—a notorious and dangerous expedient for a composer unable by nature to accept the traditional usages and disciplines of sonata form.

Israeli Folk Music

1994 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
Aaron Copland ◽  
Darius Milhaud ◽  
Arthur Honegger ◽  
Kurt Weill

During the 1930s several of Europe's most distinguished composers received commissions to arrange Hebrew songs collected from early settlers in Israel and circulated on postcards. In this edition, fifteen songs appear in voice and keyboard arrangements by Aaron Copland, Paul Dessau, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Ernst Toch, Stefan Wolpe, and Kurt Weill, making the volume a resource for performer and scholar alike. In addition, ten melodies are presented in facsimiles of the original postcards. An afterword is devoted to the significance of folk-song collecting and to the diverse uses of folk music during the period of nascent Israeli national identity.

Six String Quartets, Opus 32 and Opus 33

10.31022/c042 ◽  
1994 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leopold Kozeluch
Keyword(s):  
String Quartet ◽  
String Quartets

Kozeluch, Mozart's greatest rival in Vienna, published his only string quartets in 1790 and 1792, at a time when he was being described by the lexicographer Gerber as “the most loved among living composers.” A study of these works offers much-needed insights into this significant composer, the string quartet genre, and the fascinating decade that saw the musical shift from classicism to romanticism.

‘National Dignity’ and ‘Spiritual Reintegration’: The Discovery and Presentation of Jewish Folk Music in Germany

Jewishness ◽  
2008 ◽  
pp. 105-130
Author(s):  
Jascha Nemtsov
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
Cultural Divide ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
East And West ◽  
West European ◽  
Modern Jewish Thought

This chapter details how Jewish folk music was presented as high art to concert audiences in early twentieth-century Germany and how that strategy was criticized. In January of 1901, the first issue of the journal Ost und West (East and West) appeared in Berlin. It served as the most important organ of cultural Zionism for the next two decades, and, as its title suggests, it attempted to bridge the cultural divide between east and west European Jews with the aim of creating an ethnic nationalist goal. The first issue contained, among other things, an article by the renowned Jewish philosopher Martin Buber entitled ‘Jewish Renaissance’ — a term that was to characterize this movement. Critical to this renaissance was the establishment of a common spirit binding a modern nation. Although based in Germany, the leaders of the movement envisioned that this spirit would be found in the ‘authentic folk’ of eastern Europe and the ethno-poetry of the folk song. The chapter then uncovers the often overlooked story of these leaders, particularly Leo Winz and Fritz Mordechai Kaufmann, and the significance of their renaissance movement for modern Jewish thought and culture.

Guide to Contemporary Hungarian Composers

Tempo ◽  
1957 ◽  
pp. 27-31
Author(s):  
John S. Weissmann
Keyword(s):  
String Quartet ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
First World War ◽  
German Version ◽  
World War ◽  
Nineteen Twenties ◽  
New Objectivity ◽  
Hungarian Folk Music ◽  
First World

PÁL KADOSA (1905) represents the German tradition among his contemporaries, and in this regard he might be said to continue the course indicated by Weiner and Jemnitz. But whereas Weiner's music is anchored in the romantics and Jemnitz's in the expressionist school of Reger and Schoenberg, Kadosa's model was the music of the young German post-First-World-War school, of which Hindemith was the leading figure. Another factor contributing a great deal to the formation of his idiom was his being a practical musician, a pianist of considerable gifts. These two considerations, viz. Hindemith and the piano, inevitably dominate the instrumental character of his music as a whole. What distinguishes his work from that of the German father-figure is the strong influence of Hungarian folk-music in the rhythmic element of his music. It came via Bartók, since Kadosa did not take active part in folk-music-collecting. His mature personal style is predominantly contrapuntal, terse and detached to the point of austerity; and since he thinks in patterns of motivic figurations, it possesses marked rhythmic and dynamic power. The baroque revival of the nineteen-twenties and 'thirties—whose German version was associated with an impersonal “New Objectivity”—is reflected in his series of concertos—including four for the piano, two for the violin, one for the viola, and one for string-quartet and orchestra—precise, often epigrammatic in utterance, showing a kind of restrained and diffident lyricism that is so typical of Kadosa, and conceived in terms of brilliantly effective instrumental writing.

Imogen Holst's Music, 1962–84

Tempo ◽  
1988 ◽  
pp. 22-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Tinker
Keyword(s):  
String Quartet ◽  
Women Musicians ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Folk Dance ◽  
Music Department ◽  
School Music ◽  
Enormous Quantity

Few Musicians know of Imogen Hoist's work as a composer. She entered the R.C.M. in 1926, won an open scholarship for composition in 1927, the Cobbett Prize of 1928 with a Phantasy String Quartet, and an Octavia travelling scholarship in 1929. She was in league with the rising number of women musicians in London at the time, composing for the Anne Macnaghten Quartet, Victoria Reid and Sylvia Spencer among others; her works were performed and broadcast along with those of Lutyens and Maconchy. She was also developing her career as a pianist, undertaking much accompaniment work. Neuritis put an end to this, and, as she remained unmarried, she needed to find work to support herself financially. She joined the staff of the English Folk Dance and Song Society and began work as a school music teacher. An enormous quantity of arrangements ensued, most of which were published. As a result, her output became best known in the field of folk song arrangement, either for educational purposes or for the EFDSS. During the 1930's the only compositions she undertook were little pieces to help in her teaching. Her list of compositions did grow substantially in the following decade (during which she founded and directed the music department at Dartington), but the quantity and quality of them remained little recognized.

Kodály's Melody

Tempo ◽  
1963 ◽  
pp. 12-16
Author(s):  
András Szőllősy
Keyword(s):  
Chamber Music ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
The Other ◽  
Organic Part ◽  
Violin And Piano ◽  
Shed Light

It is a generally accepted view that the most striking features of Kodály's melodic structure may be explained by the influence of folk song. This is not borne out, however, by more detailed examination. It is true that there are certain features in his melodic types which later undergo a change, and of these a prime example is the precise periodic articulation of the melodies, which is much more consistent in his later compositions than in those of his youth. Such characteristics may indeed be attributed to the influence of folk music, but in general the typical Kodály melody existed before he could have come into close contact with folk music in the year when he made his first folk song collecting trip. Of his compositions from the years 1904–1906, the only work we can consider from the viewpoint of melodic structure is the ‘Adagio’ for violin and piano; the other two compositions, Evening for mixed voice choirs and Summer Evening for orchestra, are known only in their later revised form of 1930. This, however, is sufficient to convince us that the expansive declamation and the structural ornamentation which is an organic part of its idiom continue an instrumental tradition whose origin may well go back to chamber music of the Baroque age, with its broad-flowing slow movements. This also seems to be substantiated by the piano part, which replaces impressionistic harmonies with those which may be analysed in accordance with classical harmonic principles. This characteristic harmonisation requires mention here, although it is not closely connected with the problem of melodic structure, since even the most complicated of Kodály's harmonies, when stripped of their embellishments, reveal pure ‘classical’ chords as their basis. The role of the melody in this problem serves merely to emphasise that with Kodály, perhaps more than any other composer, harmony is never an end in itself, but is always the result of the movement of the melody. If the word did not have more significance than we wish to attribute to it here, we might say that Kodály's harmony is only secondary to melody. This word ‘secondary’, however, does not refer to expression, but merely attempts to shed light on the matter of origin, by stressing the supreme importance of melody for Kodály.

London, Wigmore Hall: Maxwell Davies's new ‘Naxos Quartets’ (and earlier works on CD)

Tempo ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 58 (228) ◽  
pp. 68-69
Author(s):  
Paul Conway
Keyword(s):  
Chamber Music ◽  
String Quartet ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
String Quartets ◽  
Individual Character ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Peter Maxwell Davies ◽  
Original Approach

In a project that will be completed in 2007, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has been commissioned by the Naxos recording company to write ten string quartets. Large-scale ambitions already realized, the intimacy of chamber music offers an opportunity not only to consolidate but also to probe and quest with the precision of scaled-down forces. It is timely, then, to be reminded that, although it has not been a major preoccupation such as opera, concerto and symphony writing, the quartet form has drawn from him some significant examples evincing an original approach. A recent Metier release usefully gathers together on one disc all Max's works for string quartet prior to the Naxos series. In these persuasive recordings, the members of the Kreutzer Quartet display a keen understanding of the individual character of each piece, the circumstances of its creation and the purpose for which it was intended.

Benjamin Lees: Quo Vadis?

Tempo ◽  
1990 ◽  
pp. 11-17
Author(s):  
Bret Johnson
Keyword(s):  
String Quartet ◽  
String Quartets ◽  
The United States ◽  
American Music ◽  
Double Concerto ◽  
Violin Concerto ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Individual Personality ◽  
Quo Vadis ◽  
Sound Spectrum

Fifteen years ago, Nicolas Slonimsky wrote of Benjamin Lees in Tempo: ‘At a time when so many otherwise valiant composers are star-crossed and complain of malign neglect, Benjamin Lees rises “in excelsis” in the musical firmament’. And so he has continued since, with many commissions and numerous major works to his credit, matched by frequent performances in the United States. It is a time that has seen the creation of his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, a set of Variations for Piano and Orchestra, a Concerto for Brass Choir and Orchestra, a Double Concerto for Piano, Cello and Orchestra, at least four other orchestral compositions of substantial scale, and the Third and Fourth String Quartets. All of these have contributed to his continuing high profile in the American musical scene. When one surveys Lees's entire corpus of music over the last four decades, one sees an impressive range of works, achievements and awards. Such pieces as the Violin Concerto (1958), Third Symphony (1969) and Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra (1965), all commercially recorded, stand out as landmarks not only of his own music but of postwar American music generally. His style has continued to evolve in recent years and whilst his hallmark is still his adherence to form and structure, he has become more concerned with orchestral sonority and, without becoming explicitly programmatic, practises his art within an ever-widening sound spectrum and colouristic palette. He has always possessed a strongly individual personality, and the ‘Lees Sound’ is unquestionably unique, even through his exposition and development of musical ideas-and the technique of continual evolution which he favours at present-derive, at source, from his most important early musical teacher: George Antheil.

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