String Quartet Research Articles

Klassisia muotoja persoonallisin kääntein: Erik Tulindbergin jousikvartetot op. 1 ja op. 2

This article concerns the String Quartets of Erik Tulindberg (1761–1814), who was the first known Finnish composer. Tulindberg was musically active primarily in the late 1770s and early 1780s, when he was studying at the Royal Academy of Turku (Kunglika Akademien i Åbo). He was respected as a skilful violinist and a chamber musician, playing in the Academy’s orchestra on ceremonial occasions and giving public concerts. Tulindberg’s compositional oeuvre comprises two Violin Concertos, six String Quartets and a few works for solo violin. The corpus of Tulindberg’s String Quartets is approached from two perspectives, namely conventional strategies of the Classical style on one hand, and Tulindberg’s recurrent choices as attributes of his personal musical language on the other. Widely used analytical tools are applied in studying the corpus, and the Quartets are compared with certain works that originate in the same period and reside in Tulindberg’s archive. The theoretical framework includes writings that focus specifically on describing the compositional strategies used in Classical and Pre-Classical music, the authors including James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Graham Hunt, William Caplin, Poundie Burstein and Danuta Mirka, among others. The discussion covers 1) the overall structure, the key design and cadences in the opening movements, all of which are in sonata form; 2) the essential harmonic traits; and 3) surface characteristics and expressive means such as topics, melodic figuration and instrumental writing. The analysis reveals that Tulindberg adopted the commonly used strategies and main expressive means of the Classical style. The attributes of his musical language include traits such as the constant use of extended modal mixture, enthusiasm for a varied rondo-form and frequent violoncello solos in the upper register. Although the String Quartets are conventional in structure, each one is individual in its construction. The stylistic correspondence between the works and those of composers such as Joseph Haydn, Luigi Boccherini and Ignace Pleyel, shows his thorough understanding of the music written by his contemporaries.

Johan Halvorsens engagemang i Helsingfors 1889–92 som katalysator för hans arbete som kompositör

The first part of the article examines the Norwegian composer Johan Halvorsen’s activities in Helsinki during the years 1889-92. The flourishing musical life of the Finnish capital, which actually inspired Halvorsen to begin composing, as well as Halvorsen’s musical agency, are examined from a variety of perspectives, both socio-cultural and biographical. The research is based on extensive historical archival material. The aim of the article is twofold: first, to map the musical and personal impulses that inspired Halvorsen’s emergence as a creative artist, and second, to highlight his contribution to Helsinki’s musical life during this period. The second part of the article presents Halvorsen’s String Quartet in E minor (1892). This is his most important work from this period in terms of its scope and the prestige of the genre. The public response to the work’s first performance was positive, but the composer himself was not satisfied: a few years later he destroyed most of the material, but transcribed the slow movement for orchestra. Since Halvorsen was a self-taught composer, it is natural to ask why: was the destruction of the work the result of a lack of quality, the composer’s excessive self-criticism, or simply the conviction that the work did not represent his stylistic idiom as a composer? These questions will be explored through a transcription of the surviving orchestral score, an analysis of musical structures such as form (macro and micro), melody and harmony in the one surviving movement, the contemporary reception of the work, and finally a comparison of the work with Halvorsen’s oeuvre as a whole.

Study of the Techniques of Akira Nishimura’s String Quartet No.2 <Pulse of the Lights>

String Quartet No.2 Pulse of the Lights was composed by Akira Nishimura in 1992. This piece is a representative work from the composer’s mature period, fully showcasing his personalized compositional techniques. It holds significant analytical value and influence. This paper explores how Nishimura organically blends Eastern folk elements with Western musical culture by analyzing the pitch organization, core materials, musical structure, and unique compositional techniques in the work. It also examines how he embeds his distinctive compositional methods within the materials and integrates them throughout the structure.

A Matter of Hono[u]r: Editing and Performing Beethoven’s Late Quartets in 1840s London

Abstract The importance to reception history of the first complete cycle of Beethoven’s string quartets, given in London in 1845 by the Beethoven Quartett Society, is securely established. Less well recognized is the significance of the complete edition of the quartets prepared by the cellist Scipion Rousselot and published in London in 1846. This article offers the first close examination of Rousselot’s edition and posits that while its claims for unparalleled correctness were unsustainable, its inclusion, uniquely in the case of the late quartets, of two uncommon features – rehearsal letters and instrumental cues – constitutes a trace of the rehearsal practices of the four players responsible for these historically outstanding performances.

Musical Dialogue in John Harbison's String Quartet No. 4

Musical Dialogue in John Harbison's String Quartet No. 4

Autonomous 4? Learners’ Collaborative Problem Solving in Chamber Music Rehearsals With and Without a Coach

This investigation explored collaborative problem solving with and without a coach by analyzing problem-solving (PS) and problem-solving-prompting (PSP) behaviors by group members and coaches in six total coached rehearsals with three collegiate string quartets, and six autonomous rehearsals with the same string quartets. Teachers’ and learners’ PS and PSP behaviors were compared in three settings: autonomous chamber music rehearsals, chamber music rehearsals with a coach, and one-to-one instruction. Coaches and students performed the same problem-solving component behaviors and most of the same PSP behaviors as observed in one-to-one instruction and in rehearsals of a professional chamber ensemble. As in one-to-one instruction, coaches could engage learners in problem solving, and in this setting invite them to collaborate with one another, by asking questions and varying the specificity of feedback and directives. Coaches’ Attention Directives preceded the most learner problem solving and collaborative engagement. During autonomous rehearsals learners often switched leadership roles fluidly, often prompting one another to problem solve. Implications for a pedagogy of coaching and inclusion of small ensembles within music education are discussed.

A Study of Lutosławski’s Controlled Aleatorism: Focusing on the 1st Movement from Jeux Vénitiens (1960-1961) and Introductory Movement from String Quartet (1964)

A Study of Lutosławski’s Controlled Aleatorism: Focusing on the 1st Movement from Jeux Vénitiens (1960-1961) and Introductory Movement from String Quartet (1964)

Interpretation of Gabriel Faure’s Pavane: Compositional and Performing Aspects

Modern interpretations of Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane demonstrate the artistic potential of the work. The variety of performances (from large orchestral and choral ensembles to chamber ensembles) shows the wide possibilities of the composition. The composer’s and performer’s versions of B. McFerrin’s compositiona and performing versions reveal a tendency to preserve the author’s text, despite the performance of the main melody by voice. The version for guitar and string quartet arranged by Thomas Koenigs and performed by the Accord Quintet, demonstrates a performing interpretation with the composer’s reworking of the work. The purpose of the research is to reveal the expressive possibilities of Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane and to characterise the specifics of his interpretation. Research methodology. The article uses the following methods: theoretical – in analysing the studies of domestic and foreign authors and available information sources; synthesis method – to establish the links between the elements identified during the analysis in order to establish a holistic concept and generalise the information obtained. Scientific novelty. For the first time in national scientific thought, the peculiarities of the performing and composer’s interpretation of G. Fauré’s Pavane are considered, and its expressive means and artistic potential are highlighted. Conclusions. Currently, there are many modern interpretations of G. Fauré’s Pavane. These performing versions are adapted for different performing groups. The modifications that take place with the composition illustrate the extraordinary artistic potential of the work. Despite the changes in the performing cast, tempo and texture, the work has not lost its relevance and popularity in the present day. The components, that are most frequently changed, are tempo, arrangement, and textural and structural modifications.

Leadership dynamics in musical groups: Quantifying effects of musical structure on directionality of influence in concert performance videos.

Music ensemble performance provides an ecologically valid context for investigating leadership dynamics in small group interactions. Musical texture, specifically the relative salience of simultaneously sounding ensemble parts, is a feature that can potentially alter leadership dynamics by introducing hierarchical relationships between individual parts. The present study extended previous work on quantifying interpersonal coupling in musical ensembles by examining the relationship between musical texture and leader-follower relations, operationalised as directionality of influence between co-performers' body motion in concert video recordings. It was hypothesised that the directionality of influence, indexed by Granger Causality, would be greater for 'homophonic' textures with a clear distinction between melody and accompaniment parts than for 'polyphonic' textures with less distinction between melody and accompaniment. This hypothesis was tested by using pose estimation algorithms to track instrumentalists' body movements in a string quartet and a clarinet quintet, and then applying Granger Causality analysis to their head motion to estimate directional influence between instrumentalist pairs for sections of the pieces that varied in texture. It was found that Granger Causality values were generally higher (indicating greater directionality of influence) for homophonic than polyphonic textures. Furthermore, considering melody and accompaniment instrument roles revealed more evidence for the melody instrument influencing accompanying instruments than vice versa, plus a high degree of directionality among accompanying instruments, in homophonic textures. These observed patterns of directional information flow in co-performer body motion are consistent with changing leader-follower relations depending on hierarchical relations between ensemble parts in terms of the relative salience of melodic material in the musical texture. The finding that automatic pose estimation can detect modulations of leadership dynamics in standard video recordings under naturalistic performance conditions has implications for investigating interpersonal coordination in large-scale music video datasets representing different cultural traditions, and for exploring nonverbal communication in group activities more generally.

THE INFLUENCE OF MUSICAL COMPONENTS ON THE OPENNESS OF THE FORM

The paper discusses the influence of musical components on the openness of the form on the example of the String Quartet no. 8 op. 110 by Dmitri Shostakovich. Different collaborations and interweaving of musical components create various solutions for both the macro and micro structure of a work. This kind of cooperation will be analyzed in this paper on the example of the analysis of the work String Quartet No. 8 op. 110 by Dmitri Shostakovich. This quartet mostly belongs to the field of tonality. Without losing sight of the integrity of the musical flow, the analysis of individual components is carried out with the aim of indicating how they are activated and participate in the construction of the musical flow. The analysis is focused, first of all, on one of the most significant means of expression of this work - the thematic content. The reason for this is certainly its leading role, of course in cooperation with other components and musical plans, in the education of the openness of the form of this musical work. The focus of attention are also compositional techniques and the way Dmitri Shostakovich uses them in this string quartet, as well as quotes from composers such as J. S. Bach, P. I. Tchaikovsky and autoquotes of his own compositions from different periods of his creation. It was concluded that by passing other composer’s material through his own stylistic prism, Shostakovich builds a specific sonority, moving airy harmony and chordal texture into the dark, ghostly realm of Shostakovich. The method of analysis and synthesis was used in the paper.

Sam Girling, ed., Pierre Rode: Selected String Quartets, Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century, vol. 87. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2023, xxi, 162 pp. $250.00.

Sam Girling, ed., Pierre Rode: Selected String Quartets, Recent Researches in the Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century, vol. 87. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2023, xxi, 162 pp. $250.00.

Composer classification using melodic combinatorial n-grams

In the present study, we investigate the supervised problem of composer classification. From a set of compositions and a set of composers, we seek to assign each composition to the correct composer using machine learning and natural language processing techniques. Our objective focused on using the n-gram technique to create vector representations of musical compositions and classify them using the Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifier on a term-frequency matrix composed of the vectors of the compositions. Our representation takes into account melodic relationships between instruments in polyphonic pieces. We extract n-grams in melodic direction, allowing us to go from one instrument to another in the process, which aims to generate more robust n-grams and a greater quantity of occurrences of n-grams. We evaluate different classification models using feature filtering and varying hyperparameters such as the TF-IDF formula, among others. We test our method on a dataset made of string quartets by composers Haydn and Mozart, achieving results that improves upon previous state-of-the-art results.

10.36871/hon.202402137

This article is devoted to the musical style of Yuri Kasparov (b. 1955), Russian composer and music teacher, Professor at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, who writes primarily chamber music. Many of his compositions are scored for a chamber orchestra comprising flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, harp, piano, percussion, two violins, viola, cello and double bass (an instrumentation derived from A. Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1). His works include over 80 chamber compositions of different genres written for one to 17 instruments. He tends to use non-standard instrumentation rather than ensembles typical for classical music such as string quartet, string trio, piano quintet, etc. Most of the techniques common to the avant-garde music are found in Kasparov’s works: the twelve-tone technique, sonorism, aleatoric music, electroacoustic music, musique concrète, performance, instrumental theatre, sound collage. Still, he remains quite a traditional composer that does not break down the boundaries of what is considered “musical” and “non-musical” sound. Kasparov’s music is beautiful, emotional, easy to understand, full of melodies and continuous instrumental solos. A simple word “beauty” becomes a stylistic innovation in his music. Kasparov believes that contemporary music can be divided into two categories: sonorism and “musical graphics”. Sonorism is focused on timbre, while “musical graphics” is distinguished by a greater use of pitch. Most of Kasparov’s works can be considered sonoristic, but today he prefers “musical graphics” — “colorless black and white composition” in which “line is important”.

Music Reviews

Abstract: Four new song cycle publications are reviewed for this September 2023 submission: Michael Ching’s Arrangements and Derangements: Interpretations of Schubert for Soprano, Cello, and Piano ; Reinaldo Moya’s Ciudad Perdida ; Lori Laitman’s Into Eternity: A Letter by Vilma Grunewald , for mezzo-soprano and piano; and Marion von Tilzer’s Into Eternity , for mezzo soprano, solo cello, string quartet, and piano.

The Stilling Response: From Musical Silence to Audience Stillness

This article introduces a hitherto undescribed pattern of audience motion during a classical music performance, wherein audience members collectively decrease their quantity of motion in coordination with shifts toward stillness in the music. This “stilling response” was observed in the audience body sway measurements from the MusicLab Copenhagen concert experiment, a research concert event in which the Danish String Quartet and over a dozen researchers collaborated to measure, analyze, and understand the experiences, physiology, and behavior of the coupled musician–music–audience system. Analysis of the performance identified over 250 “stilling points” in the music, such as rests, rubatos, and decrescendos. Most of these points were matched with measurable local decreases in movement across the majority of participating audience members. From this exploratory study, we posit that encultured classical music audiences exhibit a stilling response to suitable concert music, wherein they use their musical understanding to anticipate moments of stillness in a performance and cooperatively suppress their own movements to match. As audience stillness is recognized and valued by performers, this behavior may constitute a joint and tacit act of communication where the audience confirm their approval of and attention to the performance.

Enacting Musical Aesthetics: The Embodied Experience of Live Music

The vitality and affective potential of the live concert experience is a result of rich, cross-sensory interactions and varied participatory practices. The complexity of such entanglements has recently led philosophers to argue for an enactive, affordance-based approach that interrogates a variety of perceptual and sensory possibilities inherent in aesthetic experiences. Further, Shaun Gallagher's recent addition of the 4As (Affect, Agency, Affordance, Autonomy) to the 4Es (Embodied, Embedded, Enacted, Extended) for clarifying mind–world relations seem to have potent explanatory power for these kinds of encounters. Building on such current philosophical approaches while examining specific (and actual) live musical engagement, this article offers an interpretation of selected audience data from the MusicLab Copenhagen with the Danish String Quartet research concert to discuss particular responses from the audience physically present at the venue. Responding to neuroaesthetic approaches, we clarify the audience members’ individual and collective aesthetic experience through an enactive, affordance-based approach. We suggest that what is at play in the live concert environment is a mode of attentive dynamic listening. Rather than seeking to characterize the audience as passively responding to music, a 4Es/4As approach to aesthetic experience seeks to clarify embodied-enactive audience engagement for which anticipation is a dynamic factor that enables further musical action and resonance, also for the musicians on stage.

Janáčkův Kvartet z podnětu L. N. Tolstého "Kreutzerovy sonáty" : geneze - edice - prameny

Leoš Janáček did not return to composing a string quartet until 1923, almost 45 years after his student composition for this instrumentation. The earlier Piano trio premiered in 1908 has direct relation with Quartet after Tolstoy's "Kreutzer sonata", but Janáček was not convinced of the Trio quality and destroyed it in 1923. However, some moments from the Trio could form the basis of the future quartet. Janáček composed the piece at the initiative of České kvarteto between October and November 1923 and then sent the score to the ensemble. Nonetheless, the first performance was not scheduled until 17 October 1924, when České kvarteto performed the piece at the Mozarteum in Prague. Subsequently, the score and parts were printed in Hudební matice of Umělecká beseda. Josef Suk, the second violinist of České kvarteto, made a significant contribution to the printed form of the composition. The material was published in 1925 and the first foreign performance - critically acclaimed - took place the same year at the festival of International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) in Venice. This study deals with the complicated genesis of the composition, Suk's changes and the principles of the forthcoming edition. Furthermore, it publishes a complete inventory of sources for the first time and describes them in detailed manner.

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

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.

Wilhelm Stenhammar

Wilhelm Stenhammar’s contributions to Swedish musical life around 1900 are widely acknowledged. But his activities stretched well beyond the Swedish borders. The present article approaches Stenhammar from a transnational perspective, placing him in the broader context of European musical modernism around 1900. Following a clarification of the use of the terms ‘modernity’ and ‘modernism’ in the light of recent research on modernism in music, Stenhammar’s identity as a European modernist is discussed with special focus on Copenhagen and Berlin. Stenhammar’s compositional strategies in the finale of his String Quartet no. 3 op. 18 in F major are then analysed in terms of musical self-reflection, offering a new perspective on his compositional agency with a wealth of musical traditions at his disposal. At a time when travelling across borders by steam train had become a common part of modern life, transcultural interconnectedness seems to be a common framework for musicians to identify as modern composers. Keywords: Wilhelm Stenhammar, Henrik Hennings, Louis Glass, modernism, modernity, music analysis, self-reflection, European music historiography.

Per Ulrik Stenhammar i sin samtid

With the goal of shedding new light on a person who has come to be overshadowed by his famous son, Wilhelm Stenhammar, the aim of this study is to identify the musical activities of Per Ulrik Stenhammar (1829–1875), an architect by profession. Questions addressed are: In which musical roles does Per Ulrik Stenhammar appear? Which environments are included in his musical activities? Which aesthetic choices can be identified? The study has a biographical approach. The orientation is agent-structuralism, a perspective which focuses the interaction between the agent and the structure, seeing them as inextricably integrated. The study uses content analysis as method. The empirical data material consists of published and unpublished compositions, personal letters, notes and sketches, family chronicles, correspondence and newspapers. The result shows that in addition to being a composer, Per Ulrik Stenhammar was also an instrumentalist and a singer, that he was involved in both confessional and art-musical environments, and that his musical activities were based on a theologically motivated aesthetic. Examples of areas for future research identified in this study are Stenhammar’s string quartets and the interface between the different aesthetic expressions in his work in the two artistic disciplines of music and architecture. Keywords: Per Ulrik Stenhammar, biographical approach, confessional and art-music environments, public and private spaces, theologically motivated aesthetics.