Concert Review—

Three French Quartets, Played By Four French Masters

By Wendy Wipprecht

Newtown Friends of Music brought its thirty-second season to an elegant close with a concert by the Quatuor Parisii at Edmond Town Hall on Sunday, April 11.

The quartet, whose members are Arnaud Vallin (first violin), Jean-Michel Berrette (second violin), Dominique Lobet (viola), and Jean-Philippe Martignoni (cello), presented a program of string quartets written in France at the end of the 19th Century.

The concert opened with the Quartet in C minor, Op. 35 by Ernest Chausson. The composer had completed the first two movements of Quartet in C minor at the time of his sudden death, at the age of only 44, in a bicycling accident; the third movement was almost complete, and was finished by his friend, Vincent d’Indy, according to Chausson’s sketches.

The first movement, Grave, begins with a melancholy theme for the cello, and opens out into music of more serenity and lyricism, in which all voices of the quartet have solo parts. There is interesting harmonic writing here, too, that can only be described as flirtation with dissonance that never quite yields to it. Brief moments of resolution seem to come and go, making the music a bit hard to follow, but lovely. The cello with its sad theme returns to end the movement.

The second movement, Tres calme, opens with a beautiful, extended theme, a songlike violin melody that is written over some almost dissonant chords in the other voices. The rest of the movement explores this theme with harmonic imagination and dazzling rhythms, as the four voices sing together and in counterpoint.  This music is subtle and delicate, and it calls for playing of the same kind, combined with dynamic elegance that makes the instruments really sing. 

The finale, Gaiement et pas trop vite, has a more dramatic theme. As it takes its course through the movement, it can become serene, more of a piece with the earlier movements, or more nervous-sounding, and is even written as a fugue, all these emotional variants moving in and out of each other quickly.

Toward the end of the movement, the tempo increases suddenly, the rhythm sharpens, and the quartet comes to a rapid, almost hasty close. This sudden change is believed to be d’Indy’s work and, as I understand it, uncharacteristic of Chausson. But there is quite enough drama and volatility in this movement to make d’Indy’s contribution a part of the whole, and not just a tacked-on end.

Debussy’s Quartet in G minor, Op. 10, the next work on the program, was, like Chausson’s, the only string quartet the composer ever wrote. It was also the only work for which Debussy assigned an opus number or named a key. Perhaps the composer was nervously aware of the string quartet’s weighty history, and perhaps he was confidently saying hail and farewell to academic conventions. Paradoxically, this quartet, often considered to be Debussy’s most classical work, was written in 1893, the year in which he began the Prelude a l’ Après-midi d’un faune.

The quartet bridges Debussy’s youthful and more mature styles, marking the transition from his academic training to the unexplored, dreamed-of world of the Faune. It looks back toward the 19th Century — to Wagner and Franck — and forward to the twentieth. Debussy’s quartet has symphonic proportions, but without symphonic heaviness.

In the first movement, the primary theme is repeated often, but the harmonies beneath it are always changing, which, of course, changes the emotion of the piece. A second, rhythmically smoother theme is introduced, and followed by variations on that theme. More variations, and reminders of both themes, end the movement.

The second movement, a scherzo, is constructed on the model of a song. It contains both gypsy sounds and overtones of the Javanese gamelan. The viola brings back the first movement’s first theme, set against a pizzicato accompaniment. Then the first violin takes up the theme, with the second violin and the viola playing a contrasting accompaniment. The movement reaches a height of intensity and closes with pizzicato chords.

In the slow third movement, also in song form, the muted viola and cello sing a  lush melody reminiscent of Borodin. This is followed by a two-part invention, and by another melody sung by the first violin, anticipating Pelleas. Then the first theme returns and builds to a strong finish. The movement’s last section is lyrical and its final notes are ethereal, as if taken from Clair de lune.

The final movement is another cyclic section in the Franckian manner, in which the scherzo returns as a fugue, and the first movement’s main theme reappears in an inverted form. At the end, the theme is heard once more, this time played by the first violin; a speeded-up, driving coda repeats the theme for the last time.

The second half of the concert comprised one work, César Franck’s Quartet in D Major. This quartet, too, was the composer’s only string quartet. This quartet rests upon Franck’s ability to write a theme, and then to alter and recast it almost endlessly. He was a practitioner of cyclic form, a compositional principle developed by Liszt, by which movements are linked through thematic cross-reference. (It may be compared to Wagner’s leitmotif system as well.)

The first movement introduces the main theme — a statement made boldly by the first violin against rich and sustained harmonies in the other strings — and expresses it in various ways. A slow fugal form is played first by the viola, and then by all the other voices. This structure alternates with a faster section, also in sonata form. This is an innovative, and very complex musical architecture that was doubtless inspired by Bach’s highly controlled and structured work.

The second movement, Scherzo, has the fast, skittery quality of Mendelssohn’s music for the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, alternating with a more restful trio — a pattern that repeats a second time. The central theme, this time played by the cello, makes a brief appearance in the Trio.

The third movement, Larghetto, begins slowly, with a highly emotional theme played by the first violin. This movement is intense and harmonious, always building its emotion, and always modulating, and finally making the first violin soar upon arpeggiating chords whose volume constantly increases. This is the quartet’s emotional center.

The last movement, Allegro molto, is the longest and most involved section. Franck used the same technique Beethoven used to begin the last movement of the Ninth Symphony: a loud passage in unison introduces, in turn, short reminiscences of all the previous movements, here in reverse order.  Once we are returned to the first movement, we hear, yet again, the primary theme in the cello and violin, and then the viola and second violin repeat it at a higher speed.

The members of Quatuor Parisii fully lived up to their reputation as masters of style and technique. Artistry is the most difficult, the most elusive thing to explain. If you are hearing a work for the first time, you may be struck by its beauty, but its beauty owes a lot to its performance.

You may have six versions of Beethoven’s Ninth at home, so you can compare and contrast; but what about Chausson? Well, if you find yourself thinking that the Chausson quartet breathes like a living thing, you are in the presence of great performers.

If you wonder, during the Debussy — a more familiar quartet, but not one of Debussy’s most famous works — how an instrument can be made to sing like that, you are listening to someone special. If a dead silence follows the Debussy for just a moment, and then someone in the audience breathes  “Wow!” you know you have just heard a great performance.

And if at the end of a concert, you can listen, and with attention, to the Franck quartet, which runs 45 minutes — a quartet that, even to its partisans, is of a length and complexity that pose obstacles for the general audience — and then award the performers a standing ovation, then you know that you have been lucky enough to attend a great performance.

These may sound like left-handed compliments; this left-handed person can afford no higher praise. And if you compare the first violinist’s restrained but muscular playing and the cellist’s loose-limbed grace to Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, could you ask for anything more?