The String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1827. [1] Written when he was 18 years old, it was, despite its official number, Mendelssohn's first mature string quartet. One of Mendelssohn's most passionate works, the A minor Quartet is one of the earliest and most significant examples of cyclic form in music.
This work has four movements:
A typical performance lasts roughly 28 minutes.
Though Mendelssohn was still a teenager when he wrote this quartet, he was already an experienced composer of chamber music. He had already written the String Quintet, Op. 18, the Octet for Strings, Op. 20, and three piano quartets, [3] besides several youthful string quartets which remained unpublished. He had a few months before produced his opera Die Hochzeit des Camacho , which was not a success. (His quartet Opus 12, though it bears an earlier opus number, was actually written two years later.)
Mendelssohn wrote the quartet a few months after the death of Ludwig van Beethoven, and the influence of Beethoven's late string quartets (written only shortly before and some of which had not even been published when Mendelssohn started his composition) is evident in this work. Beethoven's late works received a lukewarm reception at best, and many – including Mendelssohn's own father – agreed with composer Louis Spohr that they were an "indecipherable, uncorrected horror".[ citation needed ] Mendelssohn, however, was fascinated by them: he studied all the scores he could obtain and included several allusions to Beethoven's quartets in Opus 13. But more than being simply a homage to his great predecessor, Mendelssohn's quartet takes the implications of Beethoven's late quartets – above all their suggestions of cyclic formal organization – and develops them in radically new directions. As Benedict Taylor writes in a very detailed analysis, this quartet "is the most thorough-going essay in cyclic form, both by Mendelssohn and by any composer to that time, until the late works of Franck at the very least". [4]
As a unifying motif, Mendelssohn included a quotation from his song "Ist es wahr?" ('Is it true?', Op. 9, no. 1) – "Is it true that you wait for me in the arbour by the vineyard wall?" – composed a few months earlier. [5] Mendelssohn includes the title of the song in the score of the quartet, recalling the title Beethoven wrote on the last movement of his Op. 135 string quartet "Muss es sein?" (Must it be?). But, unlike the introspective, existential quality of Beethoven's quartet, Mendelssohn's work is passionate and richly romantic. "...This quartet, relying heavily on compositional techniques of late Beethoven, links Classical form to Romantic expression," writes Lucy Miller. [6]
The three-note motif from "Ist es wahr?", presented in an opening Adagio in the key of A Major, establishes the cyclic form of the quartet; derivatives of the motif appear in all four of the movements, and the opening theme concludes the quartet. [7] After the Adagio introduction, the quartet breaks into a tumultuous Allegro Vivace in Sonata form in A minor. "You will hear its notes resound in the first and last movements, and sense its feeling in all four" wrote Mendelssohn to a friend. [7] So the quartet, which is mostly in minor keys, and is primarily minor in character, opens and closes in a major key – a rather daring departure from standard quartet-writing practice of the time. Many writers have seen a resemblance to Beethoven's Op. 132 quartet: that quartet, also, has an opening adagio, then a first theme built of running sixteenth notes and a lyrical passage, which is loosely akin to an inversion of Mendelssohn's theme. [8]
The Adagio movement has a middle slow, fugal section which is modelled after the fugal middle section of the slow movement of Beethoven's Op. 95. The subjects of both fugues are sinuous melodies that slide down chromatically, moving from viola to second violin and then to the other voices. Like the Beethoven model, the fugue goes through a series of increasingly complex variations with cross-rhythms in the different instruments.
The Intermezzo movement opens with a light, gossamer theme which is Mendelssohn's signature style. The lilting theme in the first violin, with pizzicato accompaniment in the other instruments, recalls the A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture and scherzo movements from many of Mendelssohn's chamber works.
The final movement of Beethoven's Op. 132 quartet is a prototype for the opening of Mendelssohn's last movement: it begins with a cadenza interlude in the first violin, leading into a fast, melodic movement with a driving bass line in the cello which is similar to the cello part of Op. 132.
The String Quartet No. 1 in F major, Op. 18, No. 1, was written by Ludwig van Beethoven between 1798 and 1800, published in 1801, dedicated to the Bohemian aristocrat Joseph Franz von Lobkowitz. It is actually the second string quartet that Beethoven composed.
The String Quartet No. 14 in C♯ minor, Op. 131, was completed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1826. It is the last-composed of a trio of string quartets, written in the order Opp. 132, 130, 131.
The Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 36, is a symphony in four movements written by Ludwig van Beethoven between 1801 and 1802. The work is dedicated to Karl Alois, Prince Lichnowsky.
Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, MWV O 14, is his last concerto. Well received at its premiere, it has remained among the most prominent and highly-regarded violin concertos. It holds a central place in the violin repertoire and has developed a reputation as an essential concerto for all aspiring concert violinists to master, and usually one of the first Romantic era concertos they learn. A typical performance lasts just under half an hour.
Ludwig van Beethoven completed his String Quartet No. 12 in E♭ major, Op. 127, in 1825. It is the first of his late quartets. Commissioned by Nicolas Galitzin over a year earlier, the work was not ready when it was scheduled to premiere. When it finally premiered by the Schuppanzigh Quartet, it was not well received. Only with subsequent performances by the Bohm Quartet and the Mayseder Quartet did it begin to gain public appreciation.
Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25, was written in 1830–31, around the same time as his fourth symphony ("Italian"), and premiered in Munich on 17 October 1831. This concerto was composed in Rome during a travel in Italy after the composer met the pianist Delphine von Schauroth in Munich. The concerto was dedicated to her. Mendelssohn attended one party after another in Munich in October 1831, the month of the premiere, but he also played chamber music and taught double counterpoint. He performed the piece himself at the premiere, which also included performances of his Symphony No. 1 and the Overture from Midsummer Night's Dream. He had already written a piano concerto in A minor with string accompaniment (1822) and two concertos with two pianos (1823–24).
The String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2, was written by Ludwig van Beethoven and published in 1808. This work is the second of three of his "Rasumovsky" cycle of string quartets, and is a product of his "middle" period.
The String Quartet No. 9 in C major, Op. 59, No. 3, was written by Ludwig van Beethoven and published in 1808. This work is the third of three of his "Razumovsky" cycle of string quartets, and is a product of his "middle" period. It consists of four movements:
Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 16 in G major, Op. 31, No. 1, was composed between 1801 and 1802. Although it was numbered as the first piece in the trio of piano sonatas which were published as Opus 31 in 1803, Beethoven actually finished it after the Op. 31 No. 2, the Tempest Sonata.
The Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor by Ludwig van Beethoven, the second of his Op. 30 set, was composed between 1801 and 1802, published in May 1803, and dedicated to Tsar Alexander I of Russia. It has four movements:
Hyacinthe Jadin was a French composer who came from a musical family. His uncle Georges Jadin was a composer in Versailles and Paris, along with his father Jean Jadin, who had played bassoon for the French Royal Orchestra. He was one of five musical brothers, the best known of whom was Louis-Emmanuel Jadin.
The String Quartet No. 4 in E minor, Op. 44, No. 2, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1837, and revised in 1839.
The String Quartet No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 44, No. 3, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1837–1838 and completed on February 6, 1838. The piece is part of the Op. 44 set of 3 string quartets that Mendelssohn dedicated to the Crown Prince of Sweden.
Felix Mendelssohn composed his Viola Sonata in C minor, MWV Q 14, when he was only 14 years old. The autograph score is dated 14 February 1824. The work was not published in Mendelssohn's lifetime - in fact not until 1966 - and it was not assigned an opus number. Although he did reuse one of the themes from the minuet movement in the equivalent movement of his First Symphony.
The Op. 33 String Quartets were written by Joseph Haydn in the summer and Autumn of 1781 for the Viennese publisher Artaria. This set of string quartets has several nicknames, the most common of which is the "Russian" quartets, because Haydn dedicated the quartets to the Grand Duke Paul of Russia and many of the quartets were premiered on Christmas Day, 1781, at the Viennese apartment of the Duke's wife, the Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna. Some scholars theorize that the "Russian" quartets were the inspiration for Mozart’s six string quartets dedicated to Haydn, but no direct evidence has been found.
Felix Mendelssohn began composing his Piano Quartet No. 3 in B minor, Op. 3, for piano, violin, viola and cello in late 1824 and completed it on 18 January 1825, just before his sixteenth birthday. The quartet was published later that year and was dedicated to Goethe whom Mendelssohn had met a few years earlier. Mendelssohn's three numbered piano quartets were the first works of his to be published, hence their opus numbers.
The six string quartets Op. 20 by Joseph Haydn are among the works that earned Haydn the sobriquet "the father of the string quartet". The quartets are considered a milestone in the history of composition; in them, Haydn develops compositional techniques that were to define the medium for the next 200 years.
Felix Mendelssohn wrote thirteen string symphonies between 1821 and 1823, when he was between 12 and 14 years old.. These symphonies were tributes to classical period symphonies especially by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and others.
The three String Trios, Op. 9 were composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1797–98. He published them in Vienna in 1799, with a dedication to his patron Count Johann Georg von Browne (1767–1827). They were first performed by the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh with two colleagues from his string quartet. According to the violinist and conductor Angus Watson, these were probably Franz Weiss on viola and either Nikolaus Kraft or his father Anton on cello. Each of the trios consists of four movements:
The String Quartets, Op. 50, were composed by Joseph Haydn in 1787. The set of six quartets was dedicated to King Frederick William II of Prussia. For this reason the set is commonly known as the Prussian Quartets. Haydn sold the set to the Viennese firm Artaria and, without Artaria's knowledge, to the English publisher William Forster. Forster published it as Haydn's Opus 44. Haydn's autograph manuscripts for Nos. 3 to 6 of the set were discovered in Melbourne, Australia, in 1982.
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