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janacek, in like a lion

March arrived today, and it came in like its proverbial lion, with rain and hail squalls and gusting winds. We headed down to NW Portland to have our first rehearsal of Janacek’s String Quartet No.2 “Intimate Letters” with the Arnica Quartet.

What a piece the Janacek is! For those of you who don’t know the story of the quartet, it was written by Janacek six months before his death, and it recounts his platonic love affair with a much younger woman (37 years younger!), Kamila Stösslová, over the course of 11 years, and documented by over 600 letters.

Kamila proved to be a powerful muse to Janacek, as he produced a non-stop series of masterpieces during those 11 years, not the least of which were his two string quartets: No.1 “Kreutzer Sonata” (1923), and No. 2 “Intimate Letters” (1928).

The quartet, as might be expected, is a very programmatic piece in the vein of Smetana’s String Quartet “From My Life”.

The first movement concerns Janacek’s first meeting of Kamila at the spa in Luhacovice, and her idée fixe appears in the sul ponticello viola near the opening of the movement. This eerie appearance of Kamila’s theme, Janacek said, was meant to show the disquiet that her sudden appearance caused in his life.

Take a listen to the theme as presented in the first movement, first by the viola, then by the cello:

[audio:janacek1.mp3]
Hagen String Quartet/Deutsche Grammophone

Much of the thematic material which ensues throughout the entire quartet is based upon this theme.

Janacek said that

“it will be beautiful, strange, unrestrained, inspired, a composition beyond all the usual conventions! It’s my first composition that sprang from directly experienced feeling … written in fire. Earlier pieces only in hot ash.”

Bonnie Jo Dopp’s excellent program notes on the quartet describe the overall program thusly:

Janácek said the Andante first movement of the quartet described the love at first
sight he felt for Kamila. He at first thought the second movement Adagio would feature a
viola d’amore (guess why). As he worked on these movements he said he felt “as if I’m
living through everything beautiful once again.” He wrote to Kamila that he hoped the
third movement Moderato would come across as “very cheerful and then dissolve into a
vision that would resemble your image, transparent, as if in the mist. In which there
should be the suspicion of motherhood.” He felt, “Only the most beautiful melodies can
find a place in it.” He predicted that the last movement Allegro might reflect his fear that
he would entrap Kamila, “that I’d bind your feet like a pretty little lamb’s so you
wouldn’t run away.” One day later, he wrote, “Now that I’m finished with those ‘Love
Letters’ I have an empty head. I’m like a completely ordinary man in the street – except
for you.”

As vivid as this description might be, the visceral impact of this quartet is hard to quantify. Extremes of every kind dominate the quartet: texture, tempo, dynamics – they all are pushed abruptly from one extreme to another. The first violin, in particular, is made to play extremely high and fast figures at various times, including a crazy set of trills in the last movement that seem to threaten to explode the instrument (and its player!).

If you haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing this great piece yet (it was last performed in Portland by the excellent Pacifica Quartet on the Friends of Chamber Music series), pick up one of the many excellent recordings (the quartets have been recorded by the Hagen, Guarneri, Talich, Panocha, and Pacifica quartets, and many other great quartets, in recent years) or come see us (the Arnica Quartet) at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU Auditorium, 3181 Sam Jackson Park Road, info: 503-494-4240) on Wednesday, March 26th at Noon, it’s free of charge. Make a treat of it and ride the aerial tram up from the South Waterfront outpost of OHSU to the top of Marquam Hill.

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