I
There is little history of the string quartet to record after the death of Beethoven in 1827. It has undergone little or no change or development in technique until nearly the present day. The last quartets of Beethoven taxed the powers of the combined four instruments to the uttermost. Such changes of form as are to be noted in recent quartets are the adaptation of new ideas already and first put to test in music for pianoforte, orchestra, or stage. The growth of so-called modern systems of harmony affect the string quartet, but did not originate in it. A tendency towards richer or fuller scoring, towards continued use of pizzicato or other special effects, and a few touches of new virtuosity here and there, reflect the general interest of the century in the orchestra and its possibilities of tone-coloring. But it is in the main true that after a study of the last quartets of Beethoven few subsequent quartets present new difficulties; and that, excepting only a few, the many with which we shall have to do are the expressions of the genius of various musicians, most of whom were more successful in other forms, or whose qualities have been made elsewhere and otherwise more familiar.
Less perhaps than any other form will the string quartet endure by the sole virtue of being well written for the instruments. Take, for example, the thirty-four quartets of Ludwig Spohr. Spohr was during the first half of the nineteenth century the most respected musician in Germany. He was renowned as a leader, and composer quite as much as he was world-famous as a virtuoso. He was especially skillful as a leader in quartet playing. He was among the first to bring out the Beethoven quartets, opus 18, in Germany. He was under a special engagement for three years to the rich amateur Tost in Vienna to furnish chamber compositions. No composer ever understood better the peculiar qualities of the string instruments; none was ever more ambitious and at the same time more serious. Yet excluding the violin concertos and an occasional performance of his opera Jessonda, his music is already lost in the past. Together with operas, masses, and symphonies, the quartets, quintets, and quartet concertos, are rapidly being forgotten. The reason is that Spohr was more conscientious than inspired. He stood in fear of the commonplace. His melodies and harmonies are deliberately chromatic, not spontaneous. Yet shy as he was of commonplaceness in melody and harmony, he was insensitive to a more serious commonplaceness.
When we consider what subtle systems of rhythm the semi-civilized races are masters of, we can but be astonished at the regularity of our own systems. Only occasionally does a composer diverge from the straight road of four-measure melody building. Yet is it not a little subtlety even within this rigorous system that raises the great composer above the commonplace? Certainly the ordinary in rhythm most quickly wearies and disgusts the listener even if he is not aware of it. Spohr’s rhythmical system was so little varied that Wagner wrote of his opera Jessonda that it was ‛alla Polacca’ almost all the way through.
The thirty-five string quartets are fundamentally commonplace, for all the chromaticism of their harmonies and melodies, and for all the skillful treatment of the instruments. The double-quartets (four, in D minor, E minor, E-flat major, and G minor) amount to compositions for small string orchestra. There are, among the quartets, six so-called ‘brilliant,’ which give to the first violin a solo rôle, and to the other instruments merely accompaniment. It is hardly surprising that the first violin is treated brilliantly in most of the quartets.
But the point is that Spohr’s quartets have not lived. In neatness of form and in treatment of the instruments they do not fall below the greatest. They are in these respects superior to those of Schumann for example. The weakness of them is the weakness of the man’s whole gift for composition; and they represent no change in the art of writing string quartets.
Ludwig Spohr.
Another man whose quartets are theoretically as good as any is Cherubini. Of the six, that in E-flat major, written in 1814, is still occasionally heard.
On the other hand, Schubert, a man with less skill than either Spohr or Cherubini, has written quartets which seem likely to prove immortal. Fifteen are published in the complete Breitkopf and Härtel edition of Schubert’s works. Of these the first eleven may be considered preparatory to the last four. They show, however, what is frequently ignored in considering the life and art of Schubert—an unremitting effort on the part of the young composer to master the principles of musical form.