Kleio Quartet
Juliette Roos, violin
Katherine Yoon, violin
Yume Fujise, viola
Eliza Millett, cello
Britten: Three Divertimenti
Haydn: Quartet op 76 no 4 in B flat
Walton: Quartet in A minor
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Three divertimenti
March
Waltz
Burlesque
Britten’s Three Divertimenti began life as three movements from a projected five-movement work for string quartet that Britten started in 1933 but never finished. This piece, called Alla Quartetto Serioso and subtitled “Go play, boy, play” (a quotation from Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale), was intended to be a suite containing portraits of the composer’s friends.
Some two years later, he revised the three movements for a performance by the Stratton Quartet on 26 February 1936 at the Wigmore Hall. They were now retitled Three Divertimenti. Britten noted at the time that the performance was greeted with sniggers and what he termed a “pretty cold silence.” This reaction, coupled with the fact that the work also received a hostile press, probably explains why Britten put the Three Divertimenti aside. The pieces were therefore not published until after his death.
The three movements as we now have them are entitled March, Waltz and Burlesque. The March is bracketed by two sections containing glissandi. The March proper is made up of two themes, the second of which uses harmonics. The second movement is a seductive Waltzfull of rubato and elegant sophistication. As a complete change of mood, the Burlesque is a tarantella-like movement in 6/8 time, driving, busy and bursting with life.
Programme note by Tessa Gould, 1994
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
String Quartet no.63 Op 76 no 4 in B flat major ‘ Sunrise’
Allegro con spirito
Adagio
Menuetto – allegro
Finale – allegro ma non troppo
The Op 76 quartets were the last complete set of six Haydn composed. They were written in 1797 at the height of his fame following his brilliantly successful visits to London, thus lying between the last of Mozart’s and the first of Beethoven’s. The origin of the nickname is not known but it is surely appropriate to the opening upward soaring melody on the first violin, which so perfectly evokes the sunrise. The melody pervades the entire movement, explored and varied by each instrument, notably the cello inversion of it at the end of the exposition.
The Adagio is built on a five-note hymn-like motif in a darker minor mood in contrast to the sunny opening movement. The lively Menuetto, far from being the courtly French dance, is robustly waltzlike and balanced by the very pastoral trio complete with cello drone – or musette.
The Finale opens with a cheerfully lilting folksong melody, possibly reminiscent of some that Haydn would have heard in England? It is developed in a series of brilliant rondo variations culminating in a prestissimo race to the conclusion.
Programme note by Tessa Gould, 1994
William Walton 1902-1983
String Quartet in A minor 1947
Allegro
Presto
Lento
Allegro molto
Oldham born composer William Walton is one of Britain’s – indeed the world’s – most distinctive musical voices, though like too many of his countrymen, his music is too little performed and valued internationally. His music is rooted in classicism and tonality, a unique voice characterised by extremes of lyricism, often melancholic; and of a rhythmic spikiness. Bursting onto the stage with the early Façade, he went on to compose in all genres: 2 symphonies, concerti, the opera Troilus and Cressida, the great oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast – when he asked Beecham if he could throw in some extra brass, the reply was: it’ll only be performed once so do whatever you want – and he was an outstanding film composer, most notably for Olivier’s Henry V, and created “patriotic” gems like Crown Imperial. Despite the confidence and exuberance, he was a perfectionist who worked slowly, often struggling to find a way through – this quartet took several years. Despite his successes, he felt overshadowed by a composer 11 years his junior – Benjamin Britten – to such an extent that he and his wife Susannah moved to Ischia.
This quartet is officially his second though a much earlier work has only recently been revived. There are many parallels with his blisteringly brilliant 1st symphony that has always overshadowed his second. The time and angst it took to complete them – the symphony premiered without its finale. The massive first movements in classical sonata form, the symphony’s owing much to Sibelius and the quartet’s to Beethoven. The “malicious” scherzo placed second in both works – the symphony’s actually marked con malizia. The more tranquil but passionate lyricism of the slow movement, and a finale – in the quartet’s case a rondo – that after all the soul searching gives us an upbeat, life affirming conclusion. There is a brilliance to the writing for strings in both works, and they teem with classically inspired counterpoint including fugal passages which in the symphony begin with strings. The 2nd symphony also includes such a fugue, of astonishing virtuosity.
The first movement begins with 2nd violin and viola in duet, but the viola singing higher, lyrical material taken up by the entire quartet. Where many composers use the second subject to relax, Walton does the opposite. Here, the spiky rhythms that characterise so much of his music dominate. The music is chromatic in extremis, the textures and interplay between the four equals the equal of any quartet composer, the development a masterclass, the recapitulation subtly different to the exposition. The scherzo is much briefer, less than half the length of the first. Walton cleverly combines elements of scherzo and trio without following the strict form, and the ending is a complete surprise, paving the way for mutes to be applied and the third movement marked Lento. All the instruments take their turn singing in a movement that matches the first for length. The music builds twice to passionate climaxes for all four players: at other times they are lamenting alone before the music subsides to a sustained hushed and gentle F major chord. As with the belated finale of the 1st Symphony, the belated finale of the quartet takes us by storm back into the spiky, repetitive and urgent rhythms so beloved by their composer. There are moments of lyrical respite and excursions into remote keys, but the music is far less chromatic that the first movement, and the note A and its tonality both major and minor increasingly dominates until A repeated fiercely in unison, with all four instruments told to play it on two strings at once – one open, one stopped – is all that remains to be said at the end of a masterpiece.
Programme note by Donald Judge