This describes two pieces of music which may be had on the same CD, Caprice CAP 21338, though there are also other recordings of each. One piece is quite exceptional and extremely close to my heart; the other, a fine piece, wonderfully delicate and sometimes extremely sad, is not the other's equal. (I'm talking about, respectively, quartets 4 and 3.)

Quartet no. 3 (1900; F major, op. 18) is in 4 movements. Few quartets are quite so like Beethoven's late F major (op. 135) in the feeling and soundworld they evoke. The first movement especially is notable for this. The next three movements are in minor: a scherzo of some length and intensity, a variations slow movement with a final ostinato, and a fantasy and fugue (and polka!).

The first movement is an F major molto moderato in sonata form, mostly quiet (though some of the second group is very much an exception.) Its main theme, which returns toward the end of the finale (as in the fourth quartet), is beautifully tranquil. The second group, in C, is based on an archlike theme and builds up a head of steam; on the recapitulation the transition between the two groups changes direction and the music is for a time in B-flat, perhaps significantly.

The f minor second movement is set off by a fast, loud upward leap (C-Dflat). The theme initiated by this leap reappears at the beginning of the finale, as does the theme of the trio to this movement. With the repeat of the phrase that this first theme begins, the pair of notes C-Dflat is heard both at the beginning and at the end (since those two notes end the phrase as well).

The movement is basically a scherzo with trio, or perhaps even an A-B-A-C-A-B-A in structure, where B is a major-mode section using A's rhythm, and C is the trio, very recitative-like (consisting of short "punches" separated by cadenzas.) The many felicities of this movement include its quite enigmatic ending, which dies away in F major before a loud rhythmic octave F (both an octave-unison in harmony and octave-rising in melody, using the rhythm of the opening of the movement.) The whole movement is striking.

The slow movement is a b-flat minor theme and variations. The theme and most of the variations have a characteristic "tag" that they end in. There is a major-mode variation, followed by one more minor mode variation before the breath-catching coda.

This coda is basically a passacaglia on a simple theme, more or less a descending chromatic scale theme. Each repetition is more intense than the last. Finally all subsides, and there is a quiet, hymnic cadence into D-flat major, and a brief pause. A single, heartbreaking dominant of b-flat minor is played quietly and expectantly (either an F major chord or F major with E-flat), and there is a sad, sad, simple cadence to a quiet and several-times repeated b-flat minor chord. We are close here to the hope-sapped spirit of the finale of the fourth quartet.

The fantasy-and-fugue finale opens in f minor, with a passage based on the scherzo's main theme, alternating with other material (the feel is perhaps not unlike the opening of the finale of Beethoven's 9th symphony, though the material is different.) Eventually the fugue theme- somewhat related to that of Beethoven's c#-minor quartet (my own favorite)- is introduced, also in f minor. It is not yet treated fugally.

Eventually it is, and after a while, it is also heard as a polka. The first movement's main theme makes an appearance toward the end, and there is a joyous ending.

The next quartet, no. 4 in a minor (op. 25, 1904-9), is anything but joyous. I know few pieces sadder.

It begins with an Allegro non troppo in a minor showing some influences of Beethoven and Grieg. Beethoven appears in the use of an opening cadenza and the chorale-like elements suggesting that master's own a minor quartet (op. 132), and in some other respects to be described as they occur. Grieg appears in the classical roundedness of the satisfying and folklike main theme that ensues (consider Grieg's own g minor quartet.)

As I said, a cadenza, followed by a (disorientingly-harmonized) homophonic chorale-like passage, introduces the movement and provides many germs of later development. (This cadenza returns as the clincher to the finale, where it is followed only by three cadencing chords into the key of a minor, and nothing more.)

One reason the following description can be so detailed is because I have loved this piece of music since college, and have heard it many times (and very recently, 2005, on the radio in other performances than those available on the Caprice complete set).

The main theme of the ensuing sonata-form is succinct, and the first phrase is repeated, not exactly, a half-tone up. The essential rhythm is established, as is a pattern, A-Bflat-F (-G) from the much-emphasized first notes of the melody on each appearance. The cadenza is then repeated.

A first crisis is reached then, and the end of the cadenza is used to descend to f minor for the second theme, which is basically an A-B-A structure with a very malleable main theme in the A section. (The theme .could. be seen as an expansion of the very beginning of the first subject main theme, too.) Variations on this theme saturate the movement from this point on.

The middle, B, section of this structure is dance-like and sad; its climax leads to a brief return of the main theme of the A section, followed by that same theme in major.

The development begins without further ado. The second theme melody continues, and stops on the border of a minor key, perhaps d minor? Here, the cadenza reenters but is brought up short, only to be heard immediately with great force. The chorale theme's first strain follows, often a warning in this quartet. The same procedure is heard again, but down a fifth (in g minor, I think.)

An active passage is introduced with the short-long rhythm that opens the cadenza, and soon a new theme - closely related to the second group - has been introduced as well. These are briefly development but the musical effect of what now follows could be summarized as the sound of a rather heavy house of cards falling all at once and calamitously, and soon the development is over, perhaps important less for itself than for how it is recalled later in the coda. The recapitulation is fairly normal.

The transition between groups, however, is far more intense this time around. The end of the second group, too, is if anything a further descent into misery.

As in Beethoven's - otherwise rather dissimilar - quartetto serioso, op. 95, the first movement coda relates very closely to the development, but is more satisfying (appropriately.) Indeed, the coda to this quartet's first movement reaches a truly thrilling climax of angry figuration against an alternation of the two strains of the chorale theme (A-C-B-G#-A and E-Gnat.-F-E.)

The ending must be remarked on: it introduces a previously-unheard fragment (long Bflat- G# - A followed by long Eflat - D - C - B - A) that is heard again in the finale's last crisis. The movement ends with the chorale theme again and a soft a-minor cadence.

The slow movement starts melodically and in a dignified manner, in A major. It is basically A-B-A-B'-A in form with B in minor both times (B' is a very intense, much elaborated version of B) and shares a feature common in this quartet's melodies, that its melodies' subphrases tend to end on the same notes as one another.

[more later]

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