The Hunt for Form in Wolfgang Rihm's Ninth String Quartet, "Quartettsatz" (1992–1993)

Abstract

THE HUNT FOR FORM IN WOLFGANG RIHM’S NINTH STRING QUARTET, “QUARTETTSATZ” (1992–1993) ROBERT A. BAKER INTRODUCTION OLFGANG RIHM’S NINTH STRING QUARTET, “Quartettsatz” (1992– 1993), represents a body of work that has gone largely unanalyzed . Joachim Brügge1 and Rudolf Frisius2 offer good introductions to the quartets, while Richard McGregor’s writing on portions of the Chiffre-Zyklus (1982–1988) provides keen detail into some of Rihm’s pitch language, harmonic progressions, and use of “generative Poles” (generativer Pol), notes or motives that serve as temporarily fixed sounds amidst other fluctuating content.3 But beyond these sources, little more is known about his technical procedures and formal tendencies . Rihm’s own writings and interviews have a largely philosophical tone, and rather than illuminating details of compositional techniques, his comments tend to perpetuate more general experiential reactions. Alastair Williams writes, “The enigma of Rihm’s music is that it possesses immediacy but invokes the idea of an organic wholeness that cannot be completely grasped.”4 Indeed, much of Rihm’s music can be W 198 Perspectives of New Music characterized in this way. Supported by his own assertions of one who “composes with nerve ends,”5 and for whom “the music comes freely from the force of imagination,”6 much has been made of a spontaneous freedom in his compositional process. In relation to his large orchestral work begun soon after the ninth quartet and completed over a decade later, Jagden und formen (1995–2001/2007/2008), Rihm describes the emergence of form as a hunt for itself. He states: “the idea of a form arising from a hunt for form or the idea of a form changing its structure while being hunted . . . remains valid for my thinking”, “The hunt is about form, the hunt is the form.”7 But despite the strong implications of a highly improvisatory compositional approach, Rihm is also acutely aware of the larger structure. He adds: “Macro-form also has to be composed. Music which is strong at every moment, within every one of its micro-forms, but lacks as strong and imaginative a scheme for its overall progress in time, this kind of music disintegrates and may, in an extreme case, become boring.”8 The inherent duality, or perhaps at times opposition, of freedom and spontaneity coupled with a need to organize macro-form, suggests a desire for conscious control over the design of the composition, while permitting some degree of freedom and exploration on the local level. In this article I attempt to reconcile Rihm’s statements on his compositional philosophies with formal qualities found within his ninth string quartet in order to demystify the free and spontaneous compositional method with which he has become associated, and shed light on the notion of form as a hunt for itself. OVERVIEW AND FORM OF THE FIRST MAJOR SECTION, MM. 1–192 The ninth string quartet is approximately twenty-two minutes in duration and can be understood in three major sections played without a break. The 2005 recording by the Minguet Quartet9 indexes the piece as three separate tracks, partitioning the work at mm. 193 and 416. Although cast in a single continuous movement, both of these locations mark logical points in the discourse to serve listening to certain portions more easily. But each point does mark a distinct change in character, the first of which, at m. 193, involves a striking spike in activity, implying a quicker and more vigorous tempo, and involving new and highly distinctive motivic material. M. 416 is less obvious as a sectional partition due to the more transitional nature of the discourse, but the music that follows constitutes a highly contrasting character to the preceding vigor of the middle section with its more static and The Hunt for Form in “Quartettsatz” 199 inward state. Due to the scope of this substantial work and the contrasts described above, the following analysis is concerned only with the first major section, mm. 1–192, and offers a conceptualization of an autonomous musical structure despite not being formally designated as a movement by the composer. Mm. 1–192 can be understood to be in nine regions,10 seven of which use all...