String Quartet No 1. Op. 112 Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)
I. Allegro
II. Molto allegro quasi presto
III. Molto Adagio
IV. Allegro non troppo
Best known for his First Cello Concerto, Second Piano Concerto and Third Violin Concerto, his opera “Samson and Deliliah”, his ”Organ Symphony”, and The Carnival of the Animals, Saint-Saens also wrote more than forty chamber works. It is interesting to note that Saint-Saens forbade the performance of The Carnival of the Animals during his lifetime, concerned that its frivolity and send-up of several popular dance tunes (including his own Dance Macabre) would damage his reputation as a serious composer.
Saint-Saens didn’t attempt his first string quartet (an intimidating benchmark for any composer) until the ripe age of 68. This first quartet was dedicated to the famous violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, whose string quartet premiered it, in addition to premiering the Debussy Quartet later on. Saint-Saens’ quartet was immediately hailed by critics as a masterwork of the French School, which they felt at the time stood in contrast with the foreign tainted followers of Cesar Franck. The work has remained a mainstay of the string quartet literature ever since.
Andantino for String Quartet Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
Although Bizet composed one of the world´s most performed and beloved operas “Carmen”, he achieved little success in his own short lifetime. His father was a singing teacher and his mother an accomplished pianist who gave Georges his first lessons. The Paris Conservatory was so impressed with the boy’s abilities that it waived rules and accepted him at the age of nine. He became a brilliant pianist, winning every prize available to him, but did not have the constitution for travel and the stress of performing. At a dinner party in 1861 at which Liszt was present, Bizet astonished everyone by sight reading one of Liszt´s most difficult piano pieces. Liszt said “I thought there was only one person able to surmount such difficulties, but I now know there are two, and the youngest is perhaps the more brilliant!” Becoming a composer and student of Gounod, Bizet had medium success with his opera "The Pearl Fishers", most notable for its famous male duet, and his “L’Arlesienne Suite”, incidental music written for Alphonse Daudet’s play of the same name, and his Symphony in C. The production of Bizet’s final opera “Carmen” was beset with problems from the start, and its themes of demi-monde betrayal and murder were shocking at the time. Gounod, Massenet and Saint-Saëns were all at the première and loved it, but the audience and press reactions were negative. Bizet was convinced his opera was a failure. A heavy smoker, Bizet died of a heart attack aged 36, three months after the premiere of Carmen, unaware that his opera would become a spectacular and enduring success, along with many of his other works.
This small piece for string quartet, a student work, was his only venture into the genre. Written as an exercise, it gives early indications of his emergent power and his gifts as a melodist. At this time he thought that his future lay in composing instrumental music, before an “inner voice”, (and the realities of the French music world) turned him toward the stage.
String Quartet in G minor Claude Debussy ( 1862-1918)
I. Animé et très décidé
II. Assez vif et bien rythmé
III. Andantino, doucement expressif
IV. Très modéré - En animant peu à peu – Très mouvementé et avec passion
Claude Debussy wrote his String Quartet Op. 10 in 1893 when he was 31 years old. It is Debussy's only string quartet. He dedicated it to the composer Ernest Chausson and it was premiered on December 29, 1893 by Eugène Ysaÿe and the Ysaÿe Quartet at the Société Nationale de Musique in Paris.
Its sensuality and impressionistic tonal shifts were not immediately admired. Too new, it represents a divorce from the rules of classical harmony and points the way ahead. However, the quartet’s poetic themes and rare sonorities did not take long to gain popular acceptance. After its premiere, composer Guy Ropartz described the quartet as "dominated by Debussy´s recent influence of Russian music” (Debussy's patroness in the early 1880s had been Nadezhda von Meck, better known for her support of Tchaikovsky). Pierre Boulez said that “Debussy singlehandedly freed music from rigid structure, frozen rhetoric and rigid aesthetics...his string quartet breaking all the rules, becoming the first great impressionist masterpiece.” Maurice Ravel, an Impressionist composer associated with Debussy, also wrote a single string quartet, a piece that is modeled on Debussy's.
