:: Historical Notes ::

THE TECHNIC OF QUARTET PLAYING

“Naturally, the first violin is the leader, the Conductor of the quartet, as in its early days, although the ’star’ system, with one virtuose player and three satellites, has disappeared. Now the quartet as a whole has established itself in the virtuoso field—using the word virtuoso in its best sense. The Müller quartet (Hanover), 1845-1850, was the first to travel as a chamber music organization, and the famous Florentiner Quartet the first to realize what could be done in the way of finish in playing. As premier violiniste of the Flonzaley’s I study and prepare the interpretation of the works we are to play before any rehearsing is done.

“While the first violin still holds first place in the modern quartet, the second violin has become much more important than formerly; it has gained in individuality. In many of the newer quartets it is quite as important as the first. In Hugo Wolf’s quartet, for example, first and second violins are employed as though in a concerto for two violins.

“The viola, especially in modern French works—Ravel, Debussy, Samazeuil—has a prominent part. In the older quartets one reason the viola parts are simple is because the alto players as a rule were technically less skillful. As a general thing they were violinists who had failed—’the refugees of the G clef,’ as Edouard Colonne, the eminent conductor, once wittily said. But the reason modern French composers give the viola special attention is because France now is ahead of the other nations in virtuose viola playing. It is practically the only country which may be said to have a ’school’ of viola playing. In the Smetana quartet the viola plays a most important part, and Dvo?ák, who himself played viola, emphasized the instrument in his quartets.

“Mozart showed what the ‘cello was able to do in the quartets he dedicated to the ”cellist king,’ Frederick William of Prussia. And then, the ‘cello has always the musical importance which attaches to it as the lower of the two ‘outer voices’ of the quartet ensemble. Like the second violin and viola, it has experienced a technical and musical development beyond anything Haydn or Mozart would have dared to write.

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

Click here to see Select Violins complete selection of violins.

“For instance Stravinsky, in the first of his three impressionistic sketches for quartet (which we have played), has the first violin play ponticello throughout, not the natural ponticello, but a quite special one, to produce an effect of a bag-pipe sounding at a distance. I had to try again and again till I found the right technical means to produce the effect desired. Then, the ‘cello is used to imitate the drum; there are special technical problems for the second violin—a single sustained D, with an accompanying pizzicato on the open strings—while the viola is required to suggest the tramp of marching feet. And, again, in other modern quartets we find special technical devices undreamt of in earlier days. Borodine, for instance, is the first to systematically employ successions of harmonics. In the trio of his first quartet the melody is successively introduced by the ‘cello and the first violin, altogether in harmonics.

THE MODERN QUARTET AND AMATEUR PLAYERS

“You ask me whether the average quartet of amateurs, of lovers of string music, can get much out of the more modern quartets. I would say yes, but with some serious reservations. There has been much beautiful music written, but most of it is complicated. In the case of the older quartets, Haydn, Mozart, etc., even if they are not played well, the performers can still obtain an idea of the music, of its thought content. But in the modern quartets, unless each individual player has mastered every technical difficulty, the musical idea does not pierce through, there is no effect.

“I remember when we rehearsed the first Schönberg quartet. It was in 1913, at a Chicago hotel, and we had no score, but only the separate parts. The results, at our first attempt, were so dreadful that we stopped after a few pages. It was not till I had secured a score, studied it and again tried it that we began to see a light. Finally there was not one measure which we did not understand. But Schönberg, Reger, Ravel quartets make too great a demand on the technical ability of the average quartet amateur.

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

Select Violins Home

THE MODERN QUARTET

“You ask me how the modern quartet differs from its predecessors?” said Mr. Betti. “It differs in many ways. For one thing the modern quartet has developed in a way that makes its inner voices—second violin and viola—much more important than they used to be. Originally, as in Haydn’s early quartets, we have a violin solo with three accompanying instruments. In Beethoven’s last quartets the intermediate voices have already gained a freedom and individuality which before him had not even been suspected. In these last quartets Beethoven has already set forth the principle which was to become the basis of modern polyphony: ‘first of all to allow each voice to express itself freely and fully, and afterward to see what the relations were of one to the other.’ In fact, no one has exercised a more revolutionary effect on the quartet than Beethoven—no one has made it attain so great a degree of progress. And surely the distance separating the quartet as Beethoven found it, from the quartet as he left it (Grand Fugue, Op. 131, Op. 132), is greater than that which lies between the Fugue Op. 132, and the most advanced modern quartet, let us say, for instance, Schönberg’s Op. 7. Schönberg, by the way, has only applied and developed the principles established by Beethoven in the latter’s last quartets. But in the modern quartet we have a new element, one which tends more and more to become preponderant, and which might be called orchestral rather than da camera. Smetana, Grieg, Tschaikovsky were the first to follow this path, in which the majority of the moderns, including Franck and Debussy, have followed them. And in addition, many among the most advanced modern composers strive for orchestral effects that often lie outside the natural capabilities of the strings!

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

Select Violins Home

THE TECHNIC OF THE MODERN QUARTET

What lover of chamber music in its more perfect dispensations is not familiar with the figure of Adolfo Betti, the guiding brain and bow of the Flonzaley Quartet? Born in Florence, he played his first public concert at the age of six, yet as a youth found it hard to choose between literature, for which he had decided aptitude,[A] and music. Fortunately for American concert audiences of to-day, he finally inclined to the latter. An exponent of what many consider the greatest of all violinistic schools, the Belgian, he studied for four years with César Thomson at Liège, spent four more concertizing in Vienna and elsewhere, and returned to Thomson as the latter’s assistant in the Brussels Conservatory, three years before he joined the Flonzaleys, in 1903. With pleasant recollections of earlier meetings with this gifted artist, the writer sought him out, and found him amiably willing to talk about the modern quartet and its ideals, ideals which he personally has done so much to realize.

[A] M. Betti has published a number of critical articles in the Guide Musical of Brussels, the Rivista Musicale of Turin, etc.

Violin Mastery
Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers
by Frederick H. Martens
Published 1919

Select Violins Home