The first movement (allegro non troppo) opens mysteriously with a trill for first viola, which continues through the next thirty-two measures. In the third the first violin announces, mezza voce, the main theme of the movement; of which the chief characteristic is two upward fifths (G—D—E-flat—B-flat). The second theme appears after an unexpected modulation in D major, and is given to the first violoncello. The striding fifths sound again in the closing measures of the first section. The development begins with these fifths employed as a canon, in contrary motion; and the same intervals play a prominent part in the entire section. The recapitulation is regular. The following Scherzo (Allegro non troppo, G minor) has a touch of Slavic folk-music. There is a Trio section in G major. The slow movement is, as in the earlier sextet, a theme and variations. The last is in sonata form. The first theme may be divided into two wholly contrasting sections, of which the second is melodiously arranged in sixths. The second theme is given out regularly in D major by the violoncello. There is a long coda, animato, which is practically a repetition of much of the development section.
In these sextets and in the three quartets, written many years later, we have the classical model faithfully reproduced. The separate parts are handled with unfailing polyphonic skill; there is the special refinement of expression which, hard to define, is unmistakable in a work that is properly a string quartet.
Opus 51, No. 1, is in C minor. The first theme is given out at once by the first violin; a theme characteristic of Brahms, of long phrases and a certain swinging power. Within the broadly curving line there are impatient breaks; and the effect of the whole is one of restlessness and agitation. This is especially noticeable when, after a contrasting section, the theme is repeated by viola and cello under an agitated accompaniment, and leads to sharp accents. There is no little resemblance between this theme and Brahms’ treatment of it, and the theme of the first movement of the C minor symphony, completed not long before. There is throughout this movement the rhythm, like the sweep of angry waves, which tosses in the first movement of the symphony; an agitation which the second theme (B-flat major, first violin) cannot calm, which only momentarily—as just after the second theme, here, and in the third section of the movement—is subdued.
The following Romanza is simple and direct. One cannot fail to hear the stormy motive of the first movement, however, in the accompaniment figure of the second.[77] Also one may suspect the movement to have been modelled pretty closely on the Cavatina in the Beethoven quartet in B-flat major. The broken effects—von Bülow called them sanglots entrecoupés in the piano sonata, opus 110—in the Beethoven work are copied rather closely in the Brahms. The Scherzo and Trio are widely contrasted; the one being in shifting harmony and 2/4 rhythm; the other plainly in F major and true Viennese waltz rhythm. In the final allegro motives from the first movement appear, so that the entire quartet is rather closely woven into a whole.
Apart from the general traits of Brahms’ style one finds little to comment upon. It is striking that Brahms, in nearly the same measure as Beethoven, was able to express symphonic material, that is material of the greatest force and dramatic power, in the form of the quartet without destroying the nature of the smaller form. But the Brahms quartets are by no means the unfathomable mysteries of the last Beethoven quartets. They are comparable in general to the Rasumowsky quartets.
There is scarcely need to speak of the quartet in A minor, opus 51, No. 2, nor of that in B-flat major, opus 67, in detail. Brahms was already master of his technique and in the short period between writing the quartets opus 51 and the quartet opus 67, his manner of expression hardly developed or changed. Kalbeck describes in detail the significance of the chief motive, A-F-A2-E, in the A minor quartet. The F-A2-E may be taken as initial letters of the motto Frei aber einsam, which was of deep meaning both to Brahms and Joachim, to the latter of whom Brahms would have liked to dedicate the quartet. The four movements, Allegro non troppo, Andante moderato, Quasi minuetto moderato, and Allegro non assai are vaguely related by minute motives. The quartet in B-flat major is on the whole happy in character, in noticeable contrast to the melancholy which pervades that in A-minor.
There is not, either in the quartets of Schumann or those of Brahms, any radical change from the so-called classical method. One is not surprised to find in Schumann’s a concentration upon lyrical moments rather than an organic development. This is the mark of the romanticists. A thoughtful ear will detect the same underlying lyricism in those of Brahms, though Brahms’ power of construction passes wholly unchallenged. In the matter of harmony neither composer is so modern as Schubert. Schumann, it is true, gives us the first allegro of a quartet in A minor in the key of F major. This is what one might call an external irregularity only. There are rhythmical oddities in all Schumann’s music, and ever present evidence of a complicated rhythmical system in Brahms’. These peculiarities are represented in their quartets.
The quartets of able men like Robert Volkmann and Joachim Raff are not less classical. There are three quartets of Raff’s which stand a little out of the general path; one in form of a suite, one called Die schöne Müllerin, and one in form of a canon. But in the main it may be said that the string quartets of all German composers down to the present day adhere closely to the model of the Rasumowsky quartets, not only in form, but in general harmonic principles. We must look to other countries for changes.
III
Among the very great quartets, that in D minor by César Franck holds a foremost place. Vincent d’Indy remarks in his life of Franck that the great quartets have been the work of mature genius. Franck waited until his fifty-sixth year before attempting to write in the form. He prepared himself specially by a year’s study of the quartets of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and even Brahms; and in 1889 began work upon what was to prove one of his indisputable masterpieces.