II
There are more brilliant and more distinguished works for the combination of pianoforte, violin, viola, and cello. Inasmuch as one of the difficulties in writing trios is the wide spaces between the natural registers of cello and violin, and this is here filled up by the viola, the pianoforte quartets of the last fifty years maintain a higher standard than the trios. Moreover the general effect is more satisfactory, because the three strings have naturally an independent and complete life, and are more equal to withstanding the onslaughts of the pianist.
The Schumann pianoforte quartet in E-flat, opus 47, is practically the first work in this form of importance, and it has remained unexcelled in beauty and romantic fervor. As to style, one notices in the very first measures the fullness and completeness of the parts for the strings, and throughout the entire work the effect of the three stringed instruments is very like that of a string quartet. In the scherzo and in the opening sections of the finale as well even the piano is treated as a single part in a quartet, not as a sort of foundation or a furnisher of harmonies and accompaniments to the others.
The Schumann piano quintet, opus 44, is even more famous than the quartet. Here the problem is still simpler, for the piano quintet is but a combination of two independent groups: the full string quartet and the pianoforte. The piano must still be handled with care else it will overpower its companions; but the complete resources of the four strings make possible contrasts between them and the piano, measures in which the piano may be quite silent, and others in which it less fills up the harmony than adds its own color to the sonority. The first broad section of the development in the first movement becomes, therefore, almost a pianoforte concerto; whereas other sections like the second trio in the scherzo are in the nature of a concerto for string quartet and orchestra. In the beginning of the last movement the strings are treated too much in an orchestral manner. There is no trace of the fineness of the quartet which should never quite disappear in this big combination. Later on the strings, however, are handled with the greatest delicacy, as in the fugal parts before the last fugue. Here, where the theme of the first movement comes back into the music with splendor, there is perfection of style. But whatever may be the technical merits or faults of this quintet as a quintet, as music it is inspired from beginning to end.
From the time of Schumann, who may be said to have left the model and set the standard for all subsequent pianoforte quartets and quintets, our history will find not more than twenty such works upon which to touch with enthusiasm. Among the quartets those of Brahms and Dvořák, and that in C-minor, opus 15, by Gabriel Fauré stand out conspicuously.
Brahms wrote three pianoforte quartets, one in G minor, opus 25, one in A major, opus 26, and one in C minor, opus 70. Of these the first two are the best known and the most obviously pleasing. There is a great deal of Hungarian atmosphere here and there in both, specifically in the final movement of the first, which is a Rondo alla Zingarese. But both quartets were written before Brahms went to live in Vienna. Both may be taken as representative of Brahms first grown to maturity, and both are rather delicately and unusually colored. In the Intermezzo of the G minor quartet the violin is muted though the other strings are not. In the beginning of the poco adagio of the second quartet all the strings are muted while the piano plays a tre corde, not, as might be expected, una corda. Later in this movement there are arpeggio passages for the pianoforte, una corda, giving a strange effect like wind over a plain, one that Brahms was particularly fond of, if we may judge by the frequency with which he employed it. Here in this quartet, and in the andante of the earlier one, and in the slow movement of the first concerto one finds it. The scoring of the first part of the second quartet is considered admirable by Mr. Fuller-Maitland; but other places may be selected equally beautifully arranged for the combination. The scoring of a sort of secondary theme in the first movement (E major), first for strings alone, then for pianoforte, carrying the melody, and strings, adding their peculiar colors, rolling figures for the cello and pizzicato for the upper strings, is exquisite. Greater, however, than all technical arrangements is the quality of the themes themselves. This has made both works greatly beloved among amateurs and artists alike.
The third Brahms’ quartet is less pleasing. The first movement was written as early as 1855. It is morbid and gloomy in character and indeed Brahms is said to have suggested to Hermann Deiters that he should imagine, while listening to it, a young man about to kill himself for lack of occupation. Of the same movement Dr. Billroth, one of Brahms’ most intimate friends, said that it was an illustration in music of Goethe’s Werther on his death bed, in his now famous buff and blue. The cello solo in the slow movement and the scherzo in general are more loveable.
The pianoforte quintet in F minor, opus 34, is one of Brahms’ greatest compositions. It was published in 1865, but not until it had gone through a rather complicated birth. Brahms had written it first as a quintet for strings alone—with two cellos. This was unsatisfactory. The themes were so powerful that Clara Schumann suggested even that he re-write it for orchestra. He next arranged it, however, as a sonata for two pianos; and indeed published it in this form a few years after he had published it in the form in which it is now best known, as a pianoforte quintet. The technical details are flawless, and to speak of them is almost to attract attention to an art which is greatest in concealment. It is far rather the broad themes, the massive structure, reënforced and held together by every device known to composers, the exalted sentiment of the slow movement, the powerful rhythms of the scherzo, that give this quartet its undisputed place among the masterpieces of music.
The two pianoforte quartets by Dvořák, opus 23, in D, and opus 87, in E-flat, have the same perfection of style and animation of manner that we have already noticed in the trios. The strings are handled with discriminating touch. There is something clear and transparent in the style, for all the impetuous, highly rhythmical, and impassioned material. And the effectiveness of the pianoforte in the combination is truly astonishing, considering how relatively simple it all is. In the first movement of the quartet in D, for example, the duet that is half canon between the cello and piano in the statement of the second theme, and shortly after, following a two measure trill, the almost Mozartian figuration given to the pianoforte while the strings develop the possibilities within this second theme; the magical scoring at the return of the first theme, which here, as at the beginning, is given in the middle registers of the cello, being thus made both melody and rich bass beneath the almost laughably simple figures for the pianoforte; these alone in one movement are instances of a wholly delightful style.
In the second quartet the style is more powerful but not the less clear. There is a splendid incisiveness in the first complete statement of the first theme, following the impetuous run of the pianoforte. Here are violin and viola in unison, the cello spreading richness through the bass with its wide swinging figures, and the piano adding a brilliance by means of commonplaces which are here delightful. Later on there is a long passage scored in a favorite way of Dvořák’s. The cello is given the low foundation notes, which are complemented by the viola, both instruments playing pizzicato. The violin has a melody which follows the figuration of the pianoforte, here of the simplest kind, but floating as it were in mid-air over the foundation tones of the cello. There are many passages in the third movement, similarly arranged, the pianoforte part being without a bass of its own, the whole fabric supported by the low notes of the cello.
The quintet, opus 84, in A major, is not less effectively scored. The pianoforte part is perhaps a little more brilliant as a whole than in the quartets, quite properly so because of the added force in the strings. In the second movement we have another Dumka, with its wild, passionate changes, and for a scherzo there is a Furiant, another touch of Bohemia.
In French chamber music with pianoforte no work is so great as the quintet in F minor by César Franck. It is fit to stand with the symphony, the string quartet, even the Beatitudes of this master, as a perfect and broad expression of his remarkable genius. The very beginning makes us aware that we are to hear a work made up of two independent groups of sound. There is the string quartet, with its passionate announcement of the chief, or one of the chief, ideas of the piece. Then there is the hushed reply of the piano, offering another idea out of which much is to grow. And, so interchanging, the two groups play out the introduction. The material of all three movements is decidedly symphonic, and the resources of this combination of instruments are taxed to the extreme. In a great part of the work they maintain a decided independence, now answering each other as in the statement of the first allegro motive, now asserting themselves against each other, as very clearly throughout a large part of the last movement where the figuration of the pianoforte is as distinct as a theme and the four instruments play another theme against it in unisons and octaves.
Indeed the use of unison and octave passages for the strings is conspicuous in every movement, as if only by so combining the quartet could maintain its own against the pianoforte. Notice this in the great E minor passage of the development section in the first movement.[82] Here is music of greatest and stormiest force. Franck has scored the accompaniment in the heaviest registers of the pianoforte, and is yet able to bring out his theme clearly above and his desired thunder by joining all the instruments in the statement of it. Notice the unisons, too, in the climax before the return of the chief motive, how the strings make themselves heard, not only above a brilliant accompaniment, but actually against another theme, given with all the force of the piano. Only in the statement of the second theme in the third section of the movement does the piano join with the strings. Immediately after these follows another tremendous passage in which only by joining together can the strings rise above the thunderous accompaniment of the piano.
The result is, indeed, more a symphony than a pianoforte quintet, and the style is solid and massive in effect. Franck’s polyphonic skill is, however, revealed at its very best, and his special art of structure, building all the movements out of a few ideas common to all, is not less striking here than it is in the ‘Prelude, Chorale and Fugue’ for the pianoforte alone. This quintet, with those of Schumann and Brahms, represents the uttermost it is possible to produce with the combination of string quartet and pianoforte. Schumann’s is the most lucid, Brahms’ the most vigorous, and Franck’s the most impassioned and dramatic of all the pianoforte quintets.
Yet there are other brilliant and successful quintets to be noticed. A quintet in D minor, opus 89, by Gabriel Fauré was performed for the first time in Paris, in 1906. Fauré had already composed two pianoforte quartets, one in C minor, opus 15, and one in G minor, opus 25. In these he had shown himself a master of style in the combination of pianoforte with strings, and such mastery is no less evident in the quintet. The latter is more modern in spirit and in harmonies. There are three movements: a molto moderato, an adagio, and an allegro moderato. Of these the first is gloomy in character, and the second is elegiac. The third is founded upon a single figure which is varied again and again. The treatment of the piano is in the main light, so that the instrument does not overpower the strings. Notice how the piano opens the work with a sort of curtain of sound, against which the instruments enter one by one. Most of this background is light, being arranged for the upper registers of the piano. Throughout the whole first movement the piano seldom takes part in the thematic development, but almost always contributes a lightly flowing sound. In the adagio, too, there is much of the same style. There is a middle section here in which all the instruments, including the piano, always in the upper registers, are lightly combined into a canonic flow which is wholly exquisite in style. The motives so treated return in a sort of apologue at the end of this movement but are not here so delicately treated. In the last movement the piano takes a much greater part in the development of the themes. It announces at once the motive which, passacaglia-wise, is used as the foundation for the whole movement. The odd spacing—the two hands are two octaves apart—gives a peculiarly shadowy effect in which the pizzicatos of the other instruments make themselves heard as sparks may be seen in mist. The whole movement is a masterpiece of delicacy.
Other quintets have been written by composers of most of the nations of Europe, but none has made more than a local impression. There is a quintet by Goldmark, opus 30, in B-flat, hardly worth mentioning; a more brilliant one by one of the younger Bohemian composers, V. Novàk (b. 1870), which in its intense nationalism is a fitting descendant of Smetana and Dvořák, but is lacking in personal inspiration; a quintet by Ernst von Dohnányi. Sgambati has written a quintet without distinction. Mr. Dunhill tells us in his book[83] on chamber music that there is an excellent quintet by a young British composer, James Friskin. Moreover the sextet for piano and strings by Joseph Holbrooke, in which a double bass is added to the quartet, deserves mention. And among American composers Arthur Foote and George Chadwick should be mentioned, the one for his quintet in A minor, opus 38, the other for his quintet in E-flat major, without opus number.
Only a few piano quartets have been written since those of Brahms and Dvořák which are significant of any development or even of a freshness of life. Those of Fauré have already been mentioned as being perfect in style, but on the whole they seem less original and less interesting than the quintet by the same composer. Saint-Saëns’ quartet, opus 41, is remarkable for the brilliant treatment of the pianoforte, and the fine sense of instrumental style which it reveals, but is on the whole uninteresting and is certainly insignificant compared with the quartets of Fauré or those of d’Indy and Chausson. D’Indy’s quartet, opus 7, in A minor is no longer a new work, nor does it show in any striking way those qualities in French music which have more recently come to splendid blooming. But it is carefully wrought and the three movements are moderately interesting. The second is perhaps the best music, the third is certainly the most spirited. There is more of the manner though perhaps less of the spirit of César Franck in Chausson’s quartet in A major, opus 30.
In the North we come across an early work by Richard Strauss, opus 13, in the form of a pianoforte quartet, which is exceedingly long, but interesting to the student who wishes to trace the development of Strauss’ art of self-expression. The pianoforte is not given undue prominence and the scoring is worthier of more interesting material. Still farther north one meets with Christian Sinding’s quartet in E minor, which is chiefly a tour de force for the pianist.
Excepting sonatas for pianoforte and various other instruments, the great amount of chamber music into which the piano enters consists of trios, pianoforte quartets and pianoforte quintets. Mention must not be omitted, however, of Schubert’s quintet for piano and strings in which the cello is replaced by double bass. The employment of the air of one of his songs (Die Forelle) as the subject for the variations in the slow movement has given the work the name Forellen Quintet. The treatment of the piano in the variations is exceedingly effective.