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Scan 24
Dictionary of music and musicians, 1908
16 lines. Read by computer on 6 September 2026. Printed page 4. See the scan on archive.org.
1growth of the symphonic form as exhibited in the string quartet, this subject having been already discussed under Form, but rather to notice the extraordinary development of the art of part-writing, and the manner in which the most elaborate compositions have been constructed with such apparently inadequate materials. In these points the quartets of Beethoven so far eclipse all others that we might confine our attention exclusively to them. In the very first (op. 18, No. 1) the phrase
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5of the first movement is delivered so impartially to each of the four players, as though to see what each can make of it, that we feel them to be on an equality never before attained to. If the 1st violin has fine running passages, those of the 2nd violin and viola are not a whit inferior. Does the 1st violin sing a celestial adagio, the violoncello is not put off with mere bass notes to mark the time. All four participate equally in the merriment of the scherzo and the dash of the finale. This much strikes one in the earlier quartets, but later we find that we are no longer listening to four voices disposed so as to sound together harmoniously, but that we are being shown the outline, the faint pencil sketch, of works for whose actual presentation the most perfect earthly orchestra would be too intolerably coarse. The posthumous quartets are hardly to be regarded as pieces written for violins, but we are rather forced to imagine that in despair of finding colours delicate and true enough the artist has preferred to leave his conceptions as charcoal sketches. This fancy is borne out when we note how large a compass the four parts are constantly made to cover, a space of nearly five octaves sometimes being dashed over, with little care for the inevitable poverty of tone produced.
7There is a wide contrast between these stupendous works of genius and the polished and thoroughly legitimate workmanship of Schubert's quartets. Here we find everything done which ought to be done and nothing which ought not. They are indeed irreproachable models. One little point deserves notice here as illustrating the comparative strength of two great men: Beethoven gives frequent rests to one or two of the players, allowing the mind to fill in the lacking harmony, and thus producing a clearness, boldness, and contrast which no other composer has attained; Schubert, on the other hand, makes all four parts work their hardest to hide that thinness of sound which is the drawback of the quartet.
9Mention of Spohr's quartets might almost be omitted in spite of their large number and their great beauty. Technically they are no more advanced than those of Haydn, the interest lying too often in the top part. They also lose much through the peculiar mannerism of the composer's harmony, which so constantly occupies three of the parts in the performance of pedal notes, and portions of the chromatic scale.
11Still more than Schubert does Mendelssohn seem to chafe at the insufficiency of four stringed instruments to express his ideas. Not only this, but he fails, through no fault of his own, in one point needful for successful quartet-writing. Beethoven and Schubert have shown us that the theoretically perfect string-quartet should have an almost equal amount of interest in each of the four parts; care should therefore be taken to make the merest accompaniment-figures in the middle parts of value and character. Tremolos and reiterated chords should be shunned, and indeed the very idea of accompaniment is barely admissible. The quartet, though differing from the symphony only in the absence of instrumental colouring and limitation of polyphony, is best fitted for the expression of ideas of a certain delicacy, refinement and complexity, anything like boldness being out of place, from the weakness of the body of tone produced. Now the chief characteristic of Mendelssohn's music is its broad and singing character, passage-writing is his weak point. Consequently, however good his quartets, one cannot but feel that they would sound better if scored for full orchestra. Take the opening of op. 44, No. 1, for instance: this is not quartet-writing at all; there is a melody, a bass, and the rest is mere filling-up; in the second, we have here as thorough an orchestral theme as could be devised—the ear longs for trumpets and drums in the fourth bar. The name symphony in disguise has often, and not unjustly, been applied to these works. This is curious, because Mendelssohn has shown himself capable of expressing his ideas with small means in other departments. The four-part songs for male voices, for instance, are absolutely perfect models for what such things ought to be. Schumann (op. 41) is the only writer who can be said to have followed in the wake of Beethoven with regard to using the quartet as a species of shorthand. All his three quartets have an intensity, a depth of soul, which, as with Beethoven, shrinks from plainer methods of expression.
13Of the earnest band of followers in this school—Bargiel, Rheinberger, and others—all that can be said is that they are followers. [Brahms's three quartets, opp. 51, 67, are perfect examples of the art of spreading the interest over all the parts, and the way the return is made to the opening subject of op. 67 at the close of the variations is a touch of unmistakable genius.]
15II. Quartets for strings and wind instruments are uncommon, but Mozart has one for oboe,
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