The Ardeo Quartet will be focusing on three major composers, who have influenced the history of classical music, during their performance this week. Albert Storace delves into their lives and works.
Anton Reicha, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are no strangers to the Manoel Theatre and their works have been performed countless times on our national stage. Now, they will be thrust into the spotlight once again with a concert by the famed Ardeo Quartet, one of the most enthusiastically applauded French chamber music ensembles.
Trills, tremolos and pizzicati characterise the scherzo, which is very rhythmic and alive yet also capable of moments of reflection
Made up of Carole Petitdemange (violin), Olivia Hughes (violin), Lea Boesch (viola) and Joëlle Martinez (cello), the quartet was formed in 2001 at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse.
Playing in numerous venues and festivals in Europe, they have shared the stage with prestigious musicians like David Kadouch, Bertrand Chamayou, Jérôme Ducros and Renaud Capuçon.
During their performance in Malta, the quartet will play Reicha’s String Quartet in G Major, Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor and Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major.
Reicha (1770-1836), originally Antonín Rejcha, was born in Prague. Later moving to Hamburg, Paris and Vienna, he finally left the Austrian capital and settled in Paris in 1808. He remained there for the rest of his life. Reicha’s importance in the history of music is assured on several counts. These are mainly the treatises he wrote on composition, the novel and highly influential approach in fugue writing, the fact that he was the first to compose quintets for wind instruments and his great role as teacher. He counted Liszt, Berlioz, Gounod as his friends and for some months before he died César Franck too.
Reicha wrote in every genre of music including over 20 string quartets, among the best of which are the eight he wrote and published in Vienna. These works were very advanced for the day and even Beethoven and Schubert were influenced by them.
Although the set of Six Quartets, Op. 90 was published in Paris in 1819, there are strong indications that they too belong to the Vienna years, years during which Reicha had studied with Salieri, Albrechtsberger and Haydn. Many of these quartets are the most radically experimental works in that genre ever published, especially considering the time in which they were composed. They foreshadow by many years several developments in Beethoven’s late string quartet writing.
Another unconventional and radical composer was Debussy (1862-1918), whose music earned him as many admirers as detractors.
Things got lively when, in 1892, Debussy abandoned the opera Rodrigue et Chimène, on which he had been working for some time. He never tried his hand at opera again until he wrote his famous Pelléas et Melisande, which remains his only opera. When he abandoned his earlier attempt at opera, he promised to write two string quartets but ended up writing only one. It remains his only work in the genre and was premiered on December 29, 1893, by the Ysaÿe Quartet at the Société Nationale in Paris. The premiere received very mixed reactions.
Because of thematic material connecting the four movements, the work has a cyclic structure which immediately brings to mind Franck’s influence. Apart from that, there are also discernible influences hearkening to Borodin .
This string quartet has very important significance because general scholarly opinion considers it as being a watershed in the history of [Western] chamber music. The reasons are many, mainly that its sensuality and impressionistic tonal shifts make it a perfect creation for its time and place. This work is considered radical, because, by resorting to a cyclic structure Debussy breaks from the rules of classical harmony and forges ahead along a new path.
Finally, the quartet will be performing works by Ravel (1875-1937), whose music is of unsurpassable precision. Milhaud wrote of Ravel’s “astonishing perfection of technique and the certainty with which his work was carried out,” making him “one of the most faultless of masters”.
Like Debussy, Ravel wrote only one string quartet, which he dedicated to his teacher Gabriel Fauré, who found a lot to criticise in the work. He hit out in particular fashion against the last movement. According to him it was “stunted, badly balanced, in fact a failure”. When Debussy got to know about this, he encouraged Ravel not to alter a note.
The opening movement is in strictly ternary form and manages to follow a course at once logical and spontaneous. Trills, tremolos and pizzicati characterise the scherzo, which is very rhythmic and alive yet also capable of moments of reflection. The tender, slow movement is very rhapsodic and the undulating gentleness of the music with hints of a little tension is typical of the composer who concludes with a vigorous finale perhaps inspired by Ravel’s admiration for Russian music.
These three works will be performed by the Ardeo Quartet on Tuesday at the Manoel Theatre. A free, pre-show talk will be held at 7.15pm. For tickets, call 2124 6389 or e-mail bookings@teatrumanoel.com.mt.
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