Amanda Maier’s String Quartet: an interpretation of the Romantic genre model

Abstract

Statement of the problem. The proposed study is devoted to the chamber instrumental heritage of the Swedish violinist and composer Amanda Maier-Röntgen, a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm and the Leipzig Conservatory, whose person and work are practically unknown in the Ukrainian musical community. However, her chamber instrumental compositions are of indisputable interest for performers and have recently gained popularity among the latter. Also, the study of the composer’s best opuses, undoubtedly, enriches scientific ideas about the development of the leading genres of musical culture in the second half of the 19th century. Recent research and publications. The creative person of A. Maier-Röntgen is sporadically mentioned in reviews considering the Swedish musical culture (Jönsson, 1995; Karlsson, 1994; Öhrström, 1987; Öhrström & Eriksson, 1995; Riemann, 2017; Laurence, 1978), in some reference materials (Öhrström, n.d.; Riemann, 2017; Laurence, 1978). The name of the composer is also found in sources covering the work of J. Brahms, E. Grieg, and Julius Röntgen, the husband of Amanda Maier, also a romantic composer (Fuchs, 2001; Hofmann & Hofmann, 2006; Grieg, 2001; Vis, 2007). At the moment, there is the only research that directly examines A. Maier’s person – it is the dissertation of J. F. Martyn (2018), where considerable attention is paid only the life and creative path of the musician, her performing activities, as well as the general problem of gender inequality in the musical environment of the second half of the 19th century. Thus, today there are no musicological studies dedicated to the composer work by A. Maier. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the study is to consider one of the chamber instrumental opuses of the composer, the String Quartet in A Major, from the standpoint of an individual interpretation of the Romantic genre model. The novelty of the research consists in the first experience in Ukrainian musicology of studying the genre-stylistic features of Amanda Maier’s String Quartet. The research results are based on the use of such methods as historical and stylistic, genre and stylistic, comparative, as well as on the set of analytical musicological methods. Research results and conclusion. A. Maier’s String Quartet imitates the features inherent in the genre model formed in the Austro-German tradition, in particular, in the work of F. Schubert, the peculiarities of which are the reliance on song and dance genre elements, a large specific weight of lyrical and epic images and narrative, the absence pronounced conflict in the sonata allegro. But in the cycle there are contrasts between the dance-genre, lyrical and lyrical-dramatic spheres, which causes a certain “mosaic” of the form with rapid changes of images that reminds of the chamber works of F. Mendelssohn and R. Schumann. Manifestations of virtuosity in the Finale of the Quartet testify to the composer’s deep understanding of the specifics of playing stringed instruments and become an imprint of her performing individuality. At the same time, the Quartet also shows certain tendencies to experiment with the already existing Romantic model, which are manifested in the tonal openness of the cycle, the absence of typical tonal correlations between its parts and between the fragments of the form within of the parts, and in a bright contrast between the First part and the Finale.