Notes on the Program by DR. RICHARD E. RODDA
Quartet in E-flat major for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 16
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born December 16, 1770 in Bonn.
Died March 26, 1827 in Vienna.
Composed in 1796.
Premiered on April 6, 1797 in Vienna by an ensemble led by violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh.
Duration: 26 minutes
Among the works with which Beethoven sought to establish his reputation as a composer after
arriving in Vienna from his native Bonn in November 1792 was a series of pieces for wind instruments—
Trio for Two Oboes and English Horn (Op. 87); Trio for Piano, Clarinet, and Cello (Op. 11); Sonata for
Horn and Piano (Op. 17); Septet (Op. 20, by far his most popular composition during his lifetime);
Quintet for Piano and Winds (Op. 16)—that enabled him to demonstrate his skill in the traditional modes
of chamber music without broaching the genre of the string quartet, then still indisputably dominated by
Joseph Haydn. The Op. 16 Quintet drew its inspiration and model from Mozart’s exquisite Quintet for
Piano and Winds of 1784 (K. 452), which Beethoven heard performed in Prague in spring 1796 during a
concert tour that also took him to Dresden and Berlin. He apparently began his quintet in Berlin and
completed the score later that year in Vienna. The piece was first given at a concert organized by the
violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh on April 6, 1797 at the palace of Prince Joseph Johann von Schwarzenberg,
which was also to be the site of the premiere of Haydn’s The Creation the following year and The Seasons
in 1801.
Though the version of Op. 16 for piano and winds is one of Beethoven’s most sonorous and
ingratiating creations, the original scoring limited the music’s suitability for the burgeoning home market
that provided a significant source of income for both composers and publishers. Beethoven therefore
made an arrangement of the work for the popular (and easily salable) configuration of piano quartet—
piano, violin, viola, and cello—that was issued simultaneously with the original wind version. The
musical substance remains unaltered in the quartet version, though the string lines, especially in the slow
movement, are given more elaborate figurations and sometimes asked to play a few additional phrases
where the wind players are allowed a little breather to rest lip and lung. The piano part is unchanged.
The work opens with a slow introduction whose stately tread and pompous rhythms recall the old
Baroque form of the French overture. With its sweeping figurations and full scoring, the piano announces
its intention to be primus inter pares in the music that follows, and, indeed, appropriates for itself the
principal theme of the main body of the movement, a sleek triple-meter melody made from a quick
upward leap and a gently descending phrase. The strings are allowed to dabble in this melodic material
before more bold piano scales and arpeggios lead to the subsidiary subject, a lovely, flowing strain in
even note values. The development section busies itself with some piano figurations before settling down
to a discussion of the main theme. A long scale in the piano reaches its apex at the recapitulation, which
returns the earlier thematic materials to lend this handsome movement balance and formal closure. The
Andante is a richly decorated slow rondo (A–B–A–C–A) that touches upon some poignant proto-Romantic
sentiments as it unfolds. The finale is a dashing rondo based on a galloping theme of opera buffa
jocularity.
Serenade in C major for Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 10
Ernő Dohnányi
Born July 27, 1877 in Pozsony, Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia).
Died February 9, 1960 in New York City.
Composed in 1902.
Premiered on January 5, 1904 in Vienna by members of the Fitzner Quartet.
Duration: 20 minutes
Ernst von Dohnányi was among the 20th-century’s foremost composers, pianists, teachers, and music
administrators. Born on July 27, 1877 in Pozsony, Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia), he inherited his
musical interests from his father, a talented amateur cellist, who gave him his first lessons in piano and
theory. At 17, he entered the newly established Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, the first Hungarian of
significant talent to do so. The young composer was honored with the Hungarian Millennium Prize for
his Symphony No. 1 in 1895, and two years later he received the Bösendorfer Prize for his First Piano
Concerto. He graduated from the Academy in 1897, and toured extensively for the next several years,
appearing throughout Europe, Russia, the United States, and South America. From 1905 to 1915,
Dohnányi taught at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, a position he assumed at the invitation of his friend,
the eminent violinist Joseph Joachim. He returned to Budapest in 1915, becoming director of the
Academy in 1919 and musical director of Hungarian Radio in 1931. He served as conductor of the
Budapest Philharmonic for the 25 years after 1919 while continuing to concertize at home and abroad and
remaining active as a composer. In addition to his work as a performer and composer, Dohnányi’s
contributions to the musical life of his homeland included inspiring and performing the works of
younger composers (notably Bartók and Kodály), reforming the Budapest Academy’s music curriculum,
guiding the development of such talented pupils as Georg Solti, Géza Anda, and Annie Fischer,
expanding the repertory of the nation’s performing groups, and serving as a model in musical matters
through the strength of his personality and the quality of his musicianship.
In 1944, Dohnányi left Hungary, a victim of the raging political and militaristic tides that swept the
country during World War II. He moved first to Austria, then to Argentina, and finally settled in
Tallahassee in 1949 as pianist and composer-in-residence at Florida State University, where his students
included Pulitzer Prize-winner American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich and his grandson, conductor
Christoph von Dohnányi, former Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra. Though Dohnányi was in
his 70s, his abilities remained unimpaired, and he continued an active musical life. He appeared regularly
on campus and in guest engagements; his last public performance was as conductor of the FSU
Symphony just three weeks before his death. He died in New York on February 9, 1960 during a
recording session.
The Serenade for Strings, Op. 10 of 1902, one of the earliest works of Dohnányi’s creative maturity,
combines a folkish sense of melody with mastery of form and harmonic sophistication. The composition
opens with a March, which, in the fashion of serenades from Mozart’s time, returns at the end of the
finale. The principal theme of the first movement is provided balance by a lyrical subject introduced by
the cello above a drone-like viola accompaniment. The Romanza embraces a flight of melody for the viola
and a more animated and wide-ranging theme for the violin. The nimble Scherzo is spun out upon
featherweight imitative counterpoint; the central trio uses a smooth, contrasting melody, which is
ingeniously superimposed upon the Scherzo theme on its return. A set of variations on a melancholy
chromatic theme and a dashing Rondo round out this handsome composition.
Quartet in E-flat major for Piano, Violin, Viola, and Cello, Op. 87
Antonín Dvořák
Born September 8, 1841 in Nelahozeves, Bohemia.
Died May 1, 1904 in Prague.
Composed in 1889.
Premiered on November 23, 1890 in Prague by Hanuš Trneček (piano), Ferdinand Lachner (violin), Petr
Mares (viola), and Hanuš Wihan (cello).
Duration: 35 minutes
By the time Dvořák undertook his Piano Quartet in E-flat major in 1889, when he was nearing the age
of 50, he had risen from his humble and nearly impoverished beginnings to become one of the most
respected musicians in his native Bohemia and throughout Europe and America. He was invited to
become Professor of Composition at the Prague Conservatory at the beginning of the year, but refused
the offer after much careful thought in order to continue devoting himself to creative work and touring as
a conductor of his music. In February, his opera The Jacobin enjoyed a great success at its premiere in
Prague, and the following month his orchestral concert in Dresden received splendid acclaim. In May,
Emperor Franz Josef awarded him the distinguished Austrian Iron Cross, and a few months later he
received an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University. Dvořák composed his E-flat major Piano
Quartet at his country home in Vysoká during the summer of 1889, the time between receiving these last
two honors, in response to repeated requests from his publisher in Berlin, Fritz Simrock, who had been
badgering him for at least four years to provide a successor to the Piano Quartet, Op. 23 of 1875. The new
composition was begun on July 10th, and completed within just five weeks, evidence of the composer’s
testimony to his friend Alois Göbl that his head was so full of ideas during that time that he regretted he
could not write them down fast enough; he completed his boundlessly lyrical Symphony No. 8 two
months later.
The quartet’s first movement follows a freely conceived sonata form. To launch the work, the unison
strings present the bold main theme, which immediately elicits a capricious response from the piano.
Following a grand restatement of the opening theme and a transition based on a jaunty rhythmic motive,
the viola introduces the arching subsidiary subject. The development is announced by a recall of the
theme that began the movement. A varied recapitulation of the earlier materials rounds out the
movement. The Lento is unusual in its structure, consisting of a large musical chapter comprising five
distinct thematic entities played twice. The cello presents the first melody, a lyrical phrase that the
composer’s biographer Ottokar Šourek believed was “an expression of deep, undisturbed peace.” The
delicate second motive, given in a leisurely, unruffled manner by the violin, is even more beatific in
mood. A sense of agitation is injected into the music by the animated third theme, entrusted to the piano,
and rises to a peak of intensity with the stormy fourth strain, which is argued by the entire ensemble.
Calm is restored by the piano’s closing melody. This thematic succession is repeated with only minor
changes before the movement is brought to a quiet and touching end. The third movement, the quartet’s
scherzo, contrasts waltz-like outer sections with a central trio reminiscent of a fiery Middle Eastern dance.
The Finale, like the opening Allegro, follows a fully realized sonata form in which an energetic main theme
(which stubbornly maintains its unsettled minor tonality for much of the movement) is contrasted with a
lyrically inspired second subject, first allotted to the cello. A rousing coda of almost symphonic breadth
closes this handsome work of Dvořák’s full maturity.
©2015 Dr. Richard E. Rodda