Vaclav Kapral : String Quartet in C Minor (world premiere)
(1) I. Allegro moderato (8:30)
(2) II. Adagio molto. Presto. Adagio molto (11:25)
Vitezslava Kapralova : String Quartet, op. 8 (original version) (world premiere)
(3) I. Con brio (7:18)
(4) II. Lento (8:08)
(5) III. Allegro con variazioni (6:55)
Bohuslav Martinu : String Quartet No. 5, H. 268
(6) I. Allegro ma non troppo (5:50)
(7) II. Adagio (6:14)
(8) III. Allegro vivo (5:33)
(9) IV. Lento. Allegro (7:44)
Vaclav Kapral: String Quartet in C Minor (1925)
Of the three composers featured on this recording, Vaclav Kapral (1889-1947) is
certainly the least known. Father of Vitezslava Kapralova and pupil of Leos
Janacek, Kapral enjoyed a multifaceted musical career that encompassed teaching,
concertizing as a pianist, writing music criticism, and preparing editions of
piano music. Thus the time Kapral devoted to composition was limited, and he
produced about fifty works over the course of his lifetime, the majority of them
given over to the more intimate genres of piano solo, vocal, and chamber music.
His String Quartet in C Minor from 1925 is the only such work in his output (though
there are two later works for voice and string quartet), and must be counted as
one of his most significant compositions. It was dedicated to the Moravian
Quartet, the same ensemble who would later work closely with Janacek on his "Intimate
Letters" Quartet and give the first performance of Kapralova's string quartet.
Cast in two movements, the quartet is an ideal introduction to Kapral's musical
style. The first movement begins with a sense of urgency, passion and drama.
Here the music, at times almost orchestral in conception, possesses an
unabashedly romantic sensibility reminiscent of Franck and Wagner. These
connections are further reinforced by the slow introduction to the second
movement, whose opening three-note motive is not only a virtual retrograde of
the first movement's opening notes, but at the same time also recalls the
questioning "Muss es sein?" motive from Beethoven's last string quartet borrowed
by Franck in his D Minor Symphony. In Kapral's quartet this motive would appear
to have symbolic significance akin to aWagnerian leitmotif; not only does it
frame the scherzo-like second movement with a slow introduction and coda, but it
also appears early in the first movement in a section marked Grave. The
postromantic language utilized by Kapral is provided with an additional element
not unexpected from an early twentieth-century composer from eastern Europe:
melodies with a pronounced folk style. Kapral's friend and biographer Ludvik
Kundera claimed that Kapral used actual folk tunes in his quartet, but does not
specify which ones were adopted. However, it is significant that the first
string quartet of Kapral's former teacher Janacek (after Tolstoy's Kreutzer
Sonata) had recently premiered when Kapral began work on his own quartet, and
the central scherzo of Kapral's second movement prominently features a melody
that unmistakably recalls the brisk, often repeated folk-like tune in the first
movement of the Janacek. In fact, Kapral's melody shares with Janacek both its
rhythmic profile and Lydian melodic inflection. Similarities to Janacek
notwithstanding, Kapral's string quartet adopts a more integral approach that
attempts to blend the seemingly disparate elements of folk song and Wagnerian
pathos in a synthesis that is more reminiscent of Bartok rather than the
deliberately jarring juxtapositions heard in Janacek's Kreutzer Sonata. The
quartet, especially the first movement, may have been a point of departure for
Kapralova when she composed her own quartet ten years later. If Kapral's only
quartet is not likely to radically alter our view of the early twentieth century
string quartet, its many musical rewards make its rescue from total neglect more
than welcome.
(Erik Entwistle for Czech Radio)
Vitezslava Kapralova: String Quartet, op. 8 (1935)
Kapral's daughter Vitezslava Kapralova (1915-1940) was just twenty years old
when she sketched her only string quartet in the summer of 1935 at the family
retreat in the village of Tri Studne, shortly after graduating from the Brno
Conservatory. She completed the composition by March of the following year in
Prague, where she moved to continue her studies at the Prague Conservatory. The
work was premiered by the Moravian Quartet at the opening concert of their fifth
season in Brno on October 5, 1936. Up until 2009, when the first edition of the
work was published by the Czech Radio, performers had to rely on a handful of
conflicting sources: the original autograph and two sets of handwritten parts
prepared by unknown copyists. The many discrepancies among these sources, which
also included several cuts, made it very difficult to determine the composer's
final intentions with any precision, and the printed edition left a number of
editorial questions unanswered. Fortunately, they have been addressed by this
recording by Skampa Quartet, which reflects the most recent Kapralova
scholarship and is as close to an authentic interpretation of the work as
possible. The three-movement string quartet is written in a traditional
fast-slow-fast scheme, using the formal structures of sonata form (Con brio),
rounded binary (Lento), and theme with variations (Allegro con variazioni). The
key centers of each movement form a large-scale V-iii-I progression in B-flat
major, though frequent modulations and tonal ambiguities leave the harmonic
structure somewhat obscured. To a large extent, Kapralova's compositional style
in the quartet combines Czech-Moravian folk rhythms and melodies along with more
modern harmonic techniques, such as the whole-tone harmonies of the
Impressionists, and even the extended chords (dominant ninth, etc.) of early
jazz. To this list of influences one can add the typical idiosyncratic
modulations, tonal ambiguity, and polyphonic voicing, all of which result in a
musical language that is distinctly Kapralova's.
The quartet opens with an arresting, dense, and tonally vague six-measure
introduction marked Con brio. The first theme which follows is a grotesque folk
dance in F major. Later, a melancholy lyrical theme appears, accompanied by
trills in the viola, with a melody and texture so strongly resembling the
opening movement of Ravel's string quartet that it must have served as a model.
The staccato third theme is also loosely based on this second theme. These
themes are, of course, developed as the movement progresses, but of particular
interest is a developmental section that precedes the lyrical theme. Here,
fragmented passages from all three themes appear and this lends a certain
familiarity to the second and third themes when they are finally stated in full.
The rich harmonic language of the first movement is further developed in the
central Lento movement which begins with a pensive cello solo in D minor. The
mood of the movement is by turns mournful, serene, and eerie, but also yearning
and even playful at times, never without the composer's characteristic lushness.
The elegant, playful theme of the Allegro con variazioni movement begins in
B-flat major and is subjected to five variations. In the Poco meno mosso
variation the theme is "hidden" in the viola's embellished sixteenth-notes and
it emerges more clearly in the second variation (Cantabile), although now in the
distant key of D-flat major. This is followed by a somber and lyrical Molto meno
mosso variation with the theme again obscured. The fourth variation (Vivo)
pulsates with a strong rhythmic drive, while changing meters and motivic
fragmentation now obscure the theme considerably. The final variation also
serves as a coda, and here the theme returns to its more recognizable form, this
time in F major. The movement intensifies quickly and, after a series of rapid
meter changes, ends strongly in B-flat major.
(Marta Blalock for Czech radio)
Bohuslav Martinu: String Quartet No. 5, H. 268 (1938)
The String Quartet No. 5, H. 268, was completed in Paris during the months of
April and May, 1938, a time of both great affirmation and great anxiety for
Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959). France, his Czech homeland, and other regions of
Europe were facing the advances of Hitler's Nazi forces. At the same time,
Martinu's personal life was enhanced by a renewed vitality he experienced as a
result of his deepening relationship with his young student, Vitezslava
Kapralova. She reminded him of home and of his youth, serving as the inspiration
for the brief instances of lyricism that grace the work. The quartet is among
the most private of his compositional efforts, the correlations so great he
refrained from publishing the work until the last year of his life. It is likely
that, as Martinu scholar Ales Brezina has observed, the delay was motivated by
the composer's reluctance to release a work that contrasted so dramatically with
his established style of moderation and objectivity. In a letter from 1959,
Martinu admitted, in fact, that his opinion was different from others and he had
refrained from two decades must also indicate, however, his realization of its
worth. Scholars have deemed it his most significant contribution to the genre,
comparing it to Janacek's String Quartet No. 2 "Listy duverne" (Intimate Letters)
from 1928 and Bartok's Third Quartet, completed in 1927. The original manuscript
provides testament to Kapralova's involvement. Marginalia contain illustrations
and personal thoughts inspired by their intimate relationship. Yet the music
itself is severe and aggressive, laden with dissonance amid rare instances of
lyricism. Martinu biographer Brian Large regards it as a disquieting score but
also the composer's most intellectual. Angry, restless, conflicted, somber,
dejected, unyielding, indignant-these are some of the states of mind encountered
on the journey through the quartet. The emotional intensity with which the
content is revealed indicates that the "stormy inspiration" Martinu acknowledges
may indeed go beyond his relationship with Kapralova to encompass his anxiety at
the encroaching wartime threat. In his Double Concerto for two string
orchestras, piano and timpani, H. 271, completed later in 1938, Martinu utilizes
a similarly aggressive compositional language. Of the latter work the reason is
clear, "When I look at my Double Concerto, I have the impression that the
atmosphere of tragic events which we remember so well is engraved on the pages
of the score, and that in it I even foretold something of the future events that
overtook my country." The Concerto's near relative, the String Quartet No. 5, H.
268, the acknowledged masterpiece among his chamber works, also represents the
inner Martinu but on a more intimate level, shaped by a raw romantic passion
that is perhaps coupled with a severe dread for the fate of Europe.
(for Czech Radio Judith Mabary)
The Skampa Quartet is among the very finest of an outstanding group of
current Czech string quartets. Through its mentors, the legendary Smetana
Quartet, the ensemble traces its roots to the earliest quartets, such as the
Bohemian Quartet, in a land described in the 18th century as the Conservatoire
of Europe and the very cradle of European chamber music. The ensemble has
enhanced this heritage with its own well-informed research of the folk songs,
rhythms, and dances from which Czech national music grew-to the extent that
their recordings of the quartets by Smetana and Janacek are considered the
benchmarks against which other performances have been measured. Prizes at
international competitions, awards from the Royal Philharmonic Society, and an
appointment as the first-ever resident artists at Wigmore Hall attested to the
competence of the ensemble's early years and provided recognition which led to
invitations to perform at major festivals worldwide, including Prague,
Edinburgh, Schwetzingen, Schleswig-Holstein and Melbourne. From the start, the
ensemble established close relationship with the BBC Radio 3, resulting in
regular broadcasts from Wigmore Hall, St. John's Smith Square, LSO St. Luke's
and the Chamber Music Proms. Teaching has also been an important part of the
ensemble's work and one that they find particularly rewarding. The members of
the Skampa Quartet have taught in many places around the world but most
importantly at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where in 2001 they were
appointed Visiting Professors of Chamber Music.
(Czech Radio 2012)