The quartet is radically different. The sextet is emotionally rich and vital; the quartet is in the first place a vast intellectual essay. There are moments in the Adagio section, and toward the close, where music speaks in common language thoughts which are noble and inspired. For the most part, however, the quartet is in a language which whatever may be its future is incomprehensible to many today. One approaches it as through a new grammar. One must first seek to master the logic behind it, both in the matter of its broad form and in the idiom of its harmonies. There are many who feel this language a sort of Esperanto, artificial, not to say factitious. There are more and more who recognize naturalness and spontaneity in it.
As to the harmonic idiom and the mathematical polyphony back of it something has been written in an earlier volume. A detailed analysis of the form is not possible without many examples from the score, for which there is no space in this chapter. Only a few features of it may be touched upon here.
The work is in a single movement, within the limits of which movements which in earlier quartets were separate have been arranged and combined as sections corresponding to the triple divisions in the old-fashioned sonata-form, with a widely extended coda. Where in the classical sonata-form there are single themes, in these divisions there are many themes. Therefore one speaks of a first theme, really a chief-theme, group, of transitional groups, of episodic though broadly developed Scherzo and Adagio.
In the first theme group there are three distinct themes. The first is announced at once (D minor) by the first violin, a theme not unlike one of Richard Strauss’. In the fourteenth measure the second theme is brought in by the second violin (D-flat major). This is taken up by the first violin, the whole period being eight measures long. The third theme (etwas langsamer) is a combination of a melodic formula (first and second violins) and characteristic harmonies (viola and cello). There follow many pages of polyphonic working with this threefold material. The first theme of the group may be said to predominate. It appears in varied shape throughout the separate parts.
What may be taken as a transitional section, leading to the second theme group, is a long fugato on a new subject. This is introduced by the second violin (first violin with secondary subject) after a considerable ritard and a pause. The passage grows rapidly faster, leading to a tremendous climax; after which the first of the second theme group is announced (first violin, zart bewegt, E-flat major). The second follows shortly after with a change of time (6/4). Here there is beautiful scoring. The first violin is at first silent, the second bearing the melody, the viola giving soft accompaniment figures, the cello sliding down, pianissimo, in long notes. Then the melody is taken by viola, the first violin has the long sliding phrases, the cello the breaking figure. The third part of this section (etwas bewegter) brings out in the first violin a rhythmically varied form of the first theme of the same group.
Now follows the first broad development section (erste Durchführung und Überleitung in Scherzo[80]), which leads to the Scherzo. The entrance of the Scherzo is prepared and easily heard, and the Scherzo itself is scored at first in note for note style. The principal theme is closely related to the subject of the transitional fugue. It works through many stages, now kräftig, now sehr zart, to a terrific climax, echoed in harmonics, and savagely terminated. A few mysterious measures, now muted and again without mutes, bring in the Trio (lebhaft, E major) the principal theme of which is of almost folk-song simplicity. The Scherzo is repeated, varied almost beyond recognition. The theme is given first to viola, between strange triplet figures (second violin and cello).
Then follows a second development section, working up again to an overpowering climax, leading to the first theme group, as to the restatement section in the sonata-form. This reëntrance of the theme is truly heroic. The second violin and viola actually dash down upon the opening notes, and the first violin and cello add a frenzy of accompaniment. Now we have the first theme group (shortened) again; and then, instead of the transitional fugue, a long and developed Adagio, page after page of muted music of unearthly, ghostly beauty. Two themes are recognizable, and the section may be divided into three parts, the first of which rests upon the first theme (first violin solo); the second upon the second theme, slower than the first (viola), and the third upon the first again, slightly modified.
After this adagio comes the second theme group, just as the second theme in the restatement section of the classical sonata form.
Finally there is a coda, in lively tempo, a rondo built upon three themes, the first two of which are taken from the adagio. The broad closing section brings back the opening theme of all, in major. The ending is very simple and quiet.
Hence we have one huge movement in sonata form, our old familiar exposition, with its first and second themes and its transitional passages; its development—in which a scherzo is incorporated; its restatement of both themes—with a new transitional passage between them in the shape of an adagio—and its broad, completing coda. The mind of a man has conceived it; and the mind of man can comprehend it.